by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
While Mazel and the rest of her team — minus Omoleura the traitor — waited for the Carapids to return, Quincy lightened the mood by telling stories. Most of the frog’s stories seemed to end with the moral: “And so the soggy swamp swallowed them up, along with everything they had and everyone they knew.”
After a while, Unari suggested that the rest of them should steal the frog’s color-changing pants as well as his shirt and watch captioned episodes of “Small Dog, Big Heart,” but Quincy objected both to the idea of being left naked and to the idea of having everyone stare at his legs for entertainment. So, they were left with his swamp stories.
Mazel couldn’t help thinking that Quincy’s ancestors would have been better off moving out of the swamps, but when she suggested the idea, the frog pointed out that his home world was ninety-seven percent swamp. The remaining three percent was apparently bog.
When the concrete door finally began to scrape open, all five of them tensed — brown bear, blue bird, ash gray frog, black cat, and calico cat. Feline tails lashed; Neera’s feathers bristled; Grawf hefted a tiny piece of the smart fabric putty in her paw; and Quincy cowered in the corner with webbed hands over his head. With his camouflaging skin and pants, the curled up frog looked much like a stray boulder.
Mazel saw Grawf eying Quincy, like the bear might like to pick up the cowardly frog and hurl him at whatever Carapids came through the door.
Instead of a pair of obsidian-armored Carapids, Mazel found herself facing Omoleura in zir familiar Avioran form; beside zim crouched an insect that looked like a giant green praying mantis, an insect that looked like a basket of snakes, and an insect that looked like a long-legged swan crossed with an outcropping of crystals.
Would the Carapid-primed bombs even work on these bizarre insects? Were they genetically similar enough? Mazel didn’t know, but she did know that it didn’t feel right to throw explosives at Omoleura without giving the insect a chance to explain. No matter what Commander Neera believed she’d seen.
Fortunately, during their hours of boredom in the concrete cell, Mazel had planned ahead, arranging several code words for her team. She held her paws out and said, “Grace of the Unhatched’s wings…” Then to keep the phrase from feeling stilted and strange to Omoleura, in case zhe truly couldn’t be trusted, Mazel added, “…we’re so glad to see you again, Omoleura! Can you get us out of here?”
“You can’t be serious,” Neera squawked, and for a moment, Mazel was sure the bird would disobey her direct order to hold fire. But then Neera folded her wings behind her, keeping her portion of the smart fabric putty carefully tucked out of sight between her feathers, and hopped her way over to one of the empty corners of the cell, twittering tunelessly to herself about betrayals and friendships that could never be repaired.
Omoleura said, “They can’t understand us when we speak in our own languages — they don’t have translation nano-bots.
“My Eminence,” the green praying mantis said, “why are you speaking to the prisoners in this… gibberish? Have your… what did you call them? Translation nano-bots? Have they stopped working.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Omoleura crooned sweetly in zir cello-like voice, having returned to the language of these strange, aggressive insects. “I simply had… insults prepared for them, harsh words they’d earned when they thought I was nothing more than a curiosity and not a… fledgling god… which I did not wish to say in front of my betrothed.”
“Fledgling god!” the praying mantis exclaimed. “How delightful! How accurate! With your poet’s lyricism and the fine qualities that I’m sure your two betrothed will bring to the union –” The praying mantis gestured broadly with its foremost talons at the other two strange insects — the basket of snakes and the long-legged swan. “–why your Triloi will be the greatest, most supernal Triloi of them all!”
Grawf snorted, seemingly unimpressed by this insect’s obvious obsequiousness.
Neera squawked, “Betrothed?!?” And then a moment later, she added, “Triloi??? What in the name of everything hatched is that?”
“What is the bird saying, dearest Omoleura?” asked the basket of snakes, coiling and writhing. As Mazel stared more closely at the bizarre insect, she saw that many of the snake-like appendages were antennae, strands of membranous wings, or waving many-jointed limbs.
“She says that she will never forgive me for my betrayal,” Omoleura answered.
“Forgive you!” the long-legged swan exclaimed in a voice like chiming bells. Zhe bent zir graceful neck toward Neera, as if she were trying to get a better look at the bird whom her betrothed had chosen to mimic.
Unlike Omoleura, the long-legged swan’s multi-faceted eyes weren’t hidden, tucked away where they wouldn’t be noticed. They were actually on either side of the small head at the end of the gracefully swooping crystalline neck. “Forgiveness is not hers to give, nor yours to need. The pathetic avian should be grateful — we will make her world orderly. Together.”
The tiny, colorful wings on the swan’s back fluttered like flower petals in a strong breeze, and she extended two of her long crystalline limbs, one to tentatively touch the basket of snakes and another to Omoleura. The gesture was strangely affectionate.
“Of course, you are right,” Omoleura said.
Mazel was beginning to wonder whether she should go ahead and order Neera to throw her explosive putty. Omoleura seemed, at best, conflicted. It might be too late to save the insectile security chief.
“I simply wanted you both to see the creatures who will become our servants in the triple galaxies,” Omoleura said to the basket of snakes and long-legged swan. “All of these species are common there.”
The basket of snakes said in a voice that hissed like wind over a desert, “You do not need to feel ashamed of the resources that were available to you. Every species has value, even these paltry. We will use their strengths to grow the Hiviiarchy. And exploit their weaknesses.”
“You heartless, wingless, piece of powdered eggshell!” Neera swore.
Omoleura responded in a harsh tone, like the squeal of a poorly played cello: “I have the Rheun chip in my brain. Forgive me.” Then zir voice changed, sounding sweet and musical again, as zhe switched from the language of Avia to the language of the Hiviiarchy: “I told the bird that she and her entire world would pay for her insults to you.”
The basket of snakes writhed, seemingly gleeful at zir betrothed’s defense of zir. “Let us go,” zhe said. “We can face these puny creatures again, together, once we are joined.”
“I feel my chrysalis silk coming in,” the long-legged swan said, clacking zir demure mandibles on zir small head. “Gummy and sweet. Ready to build the nuptial–”
Mazel could listen to no more. She cried, “Cracking eggshells!” and hurled a piece of the putty at the praying mantis, since it stood closest to her. Unari hurled a piece of putty at the long-legged swan; Grawf and Neera both threw theirs at the basket of snakes.
None of them threw putty at Omoleura. Mazel didn’t know what the security chief’s intentions were, taking her Rheun chip for zirself, but she also didn’t want to risk damaging it. She wanted her memory back. She wanted her other selves.
The putty exploded, knocking each of the three strange insects backward. Several tendrils blew off of the basket of snakes — in the chaos of the explosion, Mazel couldn’t tell if they were limbs, antennae, or merely pieces of membranous wing. The praying mantis’s left forelimb tore away, and the long-legged swan lost a leg.
“Don’t move,” Mazel cried at the insects in their own language, as best she could given the limitations of her feline mouth. “Don’t call for your warriors. Don’t do a thing.”
Mazel had never been in a battle like this before. She’d never seen a person ripped apart by a bomb she’d thrown. Her heart stopped, and she wanted to turn back time, erase the choice she’d made.
But then they’d still be locked in this cell, waiting for the Hiviiarchy to invade their galaxy and subjugate all of the peoples of the Tri-Galactic Union. “Come on,” Mazel cried to her team in her own language this time, trying her best to ignore the bizarre swan-like and snaky insects as they writhed, squealing and screeching on the floor. The calico cat led the way out through the concrete door, stepping carefully to avoid the insects’ reach. “Let’s get out of here, and find our shuttle!”
Glancing back at the far corner of the cell, Mazel added, calling to the shirtless frog, “Quincy! Get up! I’d have Grawf carry you… but I need her to restrain Omoleura.”
The bear growled, “I’d be happy to,” and grabbed the faux-Avioran roughly by a wing as she headed towards the door. Omoleura was small enough that the bear still had a paw free and said, “Should I drag along this green one too?” She grabbed the praying mantis by the joint above its broken off claw. “It looks like the one that boarded our shuttle with those Carapids. So it might know where our shuttle is.” The bear’s teeth looked mighty fearsome when she bared them. “And if it doesn’t–”
“If it doesn’t help us,” Neera supplied helpfully, “then kapow!” She spread her wings suggestively, fanning out her ruby-tipped pinion feathers. “You lose the other fore talon. Understand?”
“Of course, the Mimminoi doesn’t understand,” Omoleura crooned irritably from under Grawf’s large furry arm. “You weren’t speaking its language.” But Omoleura was, and so zhe added, speaking to the injured praying mantis, “Guide the death row prisoners to their shuttle craft, 59-4, or else they’ll blow off your other talon.”
“I don’t care!” 59-4 sang like a dying violin. “I will die to protect you, my Eminence! And then you can hatch another of my line, to serve you in our new galaxy!”
“Translate this:” Neera squawked, refusing to even try speaking the Hiviiarchy language with her songbird tongue, even if her nano-bot translators would have let her. “If you don’t show us to our shuttle, we will blow up every insect, egg, and scrap of DNA in this shattered eggshell compound. Including your precious Eminence.”
Neera was bluffing. Mazel knew Neera was bluffing, because they didn’t have enough smart fabric from Quincy’s shirt to follow through on her threat. Regardless, the calico cat was frightened by this side of the bird — the way she seemed completely unfazed by the broken insects, writhing in pain on the concrete floor.
Mazel knew Neera had been a freedom fighter, killing Reptassan occupiers as little as a year ago. But watching her face off with these insects made that whole, arcane history more real. She was grateful to have Neera on her side. But she also could hardly believe they were here, standing beside this biological wreckage they had wrought. Yes, they were theoretically facing a horde of insects who wanted to destroy their way of life, but that idea was an abstract future.
The broken bodies, still alive but mangled, those were tangible, physical, reaching toward her with their insectile limbs right now.
Everything Mazel had known in her life, from her kittenhood through her days in the Tri-Galactic Naval Academy and then her handful of years as a full officer, had taught her that problems could be talked out, solved through diplomacy.
Neera hadn’t lived that kind of life. Neera was better prepared to face this sort of conflict. Mazel felt a numb calmness spread over her feline body, like the tingly warmth of a paw falling asleep when she’d been standing in one place for too long. This didn’t feel real. She doubted herself, and her ability to make these kinds of choices: trading lives in the moment for lives in the future. But Neera seemed certain… Mazel would follow the bird’s lead.
“Now!” Mazel screamed in the Hiviiarchy language. “Tell us how to get to our shuttle now!” And as she screamed, she threw a piece of putty — the smallest she could tear off — at Omoleura’s left hind talon.
The security chief shrieked in pain as the putty exploded against zir claw, leaving a broken stump behind. But the ploy worked: the praying mantis started talking, blubbering really. “No, no, no, don’t hurt my Eminence! Go to the left–” It pointed with its unbroken fore talon.
Grawf carried the injured Omoleura under her arm with a semblance of gentleness, but she dragged the praying mantis who was guiding them, literally letting its long body be pulled across the hard floor by the broken talon gripped tightly in the bear’s paw. Blackish blood smeared across the concrete behind it, but it gamely kept directing them as they weaved their way down the corridors.
Eventually, Quincy took pity on the broken, dragging mantis and lifted up the end of its abdomen. The frog hopped after Grawf, keeping the praying mantis swaying in the air, just above the concrete floor.
As they moved through the corridors of the Hiviiarchy installation, Neera kept checking every space they passed.
“Are you making sure the rooms are clear?” Mazel asked, confused by the bird’s behavior.
“Looking for weapons,” Neera said, bluntly. “I want any Carapids who find us to see that we’re armed, without having to throw bits of explosive at them first.”
“You won’t find any weapons,” Omoleura said from zir position under Grawf’s arm. “The Hiviiarchy’s weapons are Carapids. And they won’t fight for you. Only for me. And only if I’m fighting you.”
“Are you fighting us?” Mazel asked.
“Shut that traitor’s mouth,” Neera squawked at Grawf.
The bear shifted her arm to where Omoleura’s wings and legs were pinned more firmly in place, so the insect couldn’t vibrate well enough to talk any more.
As Neera had expected, the team encountered several pairs of Carapid warriors, patrolling the hallways, before making it to the warehouse where their shuttle was docked. The bits of explosive putty handled each of the Carapids before they could do damage with their bulky talons, but the plucky team of mammals, bird, and frog were running quite low of weaponry by the time their shuttle was in sight.
Quincy feared for his pants, quite loudly. Much more quietly, Mazel feared for their lives.
The shuttle was surrounded by more insects like the praying mantis — their colors and exact shapes varied, but they were all narrower and less imposing than the Carapids. The praying mantis called them — and itself — Mimminoi. And they seemed to be analyzing the shuttle, studying it, trying to understand every aspect of its construction. However, unlike the Carapid warriors who required their talons to be exploded off of them before they’d leave Mazel’s team alone, the Mimminoi raised their arms in the air, squealed, and ran away frightened at the mere sight of their fellow insects, broken and crushed under Grawf’s furry arms.
Mazel sent Grawf into Star-Skipper 1 first, in case there were more Mimminoi inside, trying to unlock the cryptography protecting the shuttle’s computer. There were. And those ones came running out of the shuttle, screeching in terror too.
Once all of them — calico cat, black cat, brown bear, shirtless frog, blue bird, and two broken insects — were aboard the shuttle, Grawf asked, “What do you want me to do with our prisoners?”
“Omoleura has a piece of me,” Mazel said. “Zhe comes with us.”
“Zhe could be lying!” Neera squawked. “Leave the traitor here.”
Omoleura struggled under Grawf’s arm, until the bear eased the pressure against zir enough for the insect to croon, “Jerysha, believe me, I was only trying to protect you! All of you! Please, please, forgive me.”
Neera’s feathers ruffled, puffing her face into a frightful, spiky sphere.
Mazel ignored her. The angry, spiteful bird wasn’t the commanding officer on this mission. Mazel was. “Omoleura,” she said, but then she corrected herself, “Omoleura Rheun, what do you want us to do with this Mimminoi?”
“If we leave it here,” Omoleura said, “it will die. They don’t bother healing Mimminoi or Carapids. Doctors here are only for Chrysaloi — my kind — and Triloi, who are formed when… my kind is mated in threes.”
“Then we’ll bring it,” Mazel said.
Since they were all inside, the calico cat took her seat at the front of the shuttle and began the procedure for launch. Grawf took her pilot’s seat beside Mazel, leaving the broken insects to fend for themselves on the shuttle’s floor, under Neera’s watchful eye and trigger-happy pinion feathers which still held a pinch of the exploding putty. Mazel assumed the bird was too smart to use it inside the shuttle. She hoped that wasn’t a foolish assumption.
Once the shuttle was fully sealed and powered up, Mazel gave the order for Grawf to take them home. They had to ram their way out of the warehouse, but the shuttle’s force shielding protected it. Star-Skipper 1 ripped a hole in the side of the Hiviiarchy installation and made tracks towards the distant stars.
After changing course several times, Grawf dropped the shuttle into a minimal power mode for most of the flight back to Nexus Nine, making it far, far harder for them to be tracked. As far as Mazel knew, there were no Hiviiarchy vessels following them, but it was better to be sure and play things as safe as possible.
No matter how careful they were, Mazel had a feeling that everyone on Nexus Nine Base would be jittery, keeping their eyes nervously on the nexus for a long time after they returned with their devastating news of what they’d found in the galaxy Ennea.
“We’ve arrived at the nexus,” Grawf said.
“Take us through, Lieutenant Grawf.” Mazel’s fur fluffed out around her neck and shoulders in trepidation. She remembered feeling that the passage through the nexus coming here was extremely significant somehow… but she didn’t remember how. She resented the knowledge that Omoleura might remember, if she could overcome her pride enough to ask zim. But that wasn’t Omoleura’s memory. And Mazel preferred to wait to get it back, vivid and complete inside of her mind, rather than to ask pathetically for it, only to have it filtered through the insect’s vibrating wings in a pallid explanation. If the insect deigned to share those scraps of what zhe had taken from her.
“There’s something wrong,” Grawf said.
“What do you mean?” Mazel kept staring at the viewscreen, waiting for the bright lines of colors to explode. Instead, there was only blackness and the pinpoint diamond spots of distant stars.
“The nexus isn’t opening for us.” The bear shifted uncomfortably in her pilot’s seat, as if she felt responsible for the failure. But Mazel didn’t see how it could possibly be her fault.
Mazel looked at the readings on her computer displays. They were in the right spot. The nexus should have been opening for them.
“The Sky Nest…” Neera said in mournfully, tuneful song, “…is gone?”
“Not gone,” Mazel said, still checking her readings. “It’s here. It just… won’t open. So we can’t fly through it.”
“The Unhatched… have rejected us.” Sad birdsong can pierce through the hardest heart. And Neera’s voice reflected that the bird was clearly heartbroken.
Continue on to Chapter 10…