Anxious Gretchen: Space Archaeologist Part 2
I pressed my face close to the window above my bed, staring out at the speed-blurred stars. The Killer Qu’een’s engines rumbled soothingly against my chest, reminding me of when Sebastian curled up on me to sleep.
Stepping inside the ship was almost as overwhelming as meeting Fleetwood Mercury for the first time. Instead of a minimalistic, monochromatic interior, Fleetwood Mercury’s eclectic style covered every square inch. From the racing stripes painted down the orange corridors to the jukebox wedged into the corner of the common room and the green shag carpet in the small armory, it felt as though I had stepped into a time machine that had fused every decade of the late 1900s into one delightfully wacky combination.
Unlike the rest of the Killer Qu’een, my chambers were small and unadorned, the dark walls, floor, and bedding waiting for the personal touches the rest of the bedrooms had received from Fleetwood, Chester, and Azo’lah.
Someone rapped on my door.
“Yes?” I answered, reluctantly tearing my attention from the view.
The door dissolved, admitting Chester along with an ear-shattering blast of rock music.
“Hey,” he replied as the door materialized at his back, the quiet returning with it. He held a leather bandolier, but instead of ammunition, each loop sported a different archaeological brush or tool. “I was sent to outfit you,” he joked.
“I thought you were piloting.” I wondered if a spaceship this technologically advanced had something as simple as autopilot.
“I turned her over to Azo’lah. I’ll have plenty of chances to put this badass queen through her paces after our refuel stop on Golyn. Plus,” he smiled conspiratorially, “I thought you might have some questions.”
“So many questions.” I swung my feet over the edge of the bunk, leaving room for Chester to sit if he wanted. “So very many.”
Accepting my silent invitation, Chester plopped next to me, ruffling the soft, woven midnight blue bedspread beneath me. “Shoot,” he prompted.”
“Why were you taken?” I asked.
“For my vast knowledge of Earth music.”
I laughed, but his contracting eyebrows had me pulling up short.
“No, seriously,” he elaborated. “I worked part-time at a record store to help pay my way through grad school. Ph.D. in Astrophysics and in Mechanical Engineering.” He answered my question before I could voice it. “One night, I was walking home from work and bam, I’m in the middle of the whole U.F.O. routine, courtesy of one Destyrian princess.”
I dipped my head, unsure whether I wanted the answer to my next question. “Are they… are they forcing you to stay here?”
“No!” Chester laughed, waving his hands emphatically. “I chose to stay. Fleetwood takes me home periodically so I can see my parents and sisters.”
“Where does your family think you are?” I asked, baffled by Chester’s easy acceptance of spacefaring life.
“They think I’m still at CalTech. You’d be surprised how easy advanced tech makes it to create official documents.”
“Don’t you—don’t you miss it? School? Your life back on Earth?”
Chester’s grin widened. “After finding out aliens are real and intergalactic travel is possible, why would I want to go back to earth to study it when I could stay here and live it? Plus, life on Destyr as the favored of the princess isn’t too shabby.”
“Are you sure you don’t have Stockholm syndrome? We were kind of kidnapped,” I pointed out. I realized I was clutching the comforter beneath us so tightly my fingers burned. I released it and began biting at my thumb nail.
“Well, to be fair, yes,” he conceded, shuffling his sneakers against the floor, “by our standards, we were kidnapped. But to the Dysterians, we invited them.”
“What?”
“Not us, specifically, but humanity,” Chester clarified. “We’ve been reaching out to the stars since the sixties. We called out, and the Destyrians responded. According to their laws of hospitality, if a door is opened and you choose to walk through it, you are accepting your hosts’ invitation. I walked into my green beam.”
“But you didn’t know,” I protested. “I certainly didn’t. I fell into my beam.”
“I’ve explained it to them. Fleetwood can be purposefully slow or forgetful of certain facts when she wants to be, but she has a good heart. Actually, she’s the best.” Chester smiled.
“Are you two, like, a thing?” I blurted, my traitorous blush blooming in the momentary silence. This was, no doubt, not the line of questioning that Chester had in mind, and here I was, prying. Of course, I’d already messed up within minutes of our first real conversation.
“Oh my god, no,” Chester laughed. “She’s cute—”
“Yes, she is!” I agreed, attempting to cover for my earlier blunder.
Chester’s eyebrow cocked playfully. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that.”
“Chester, please, don’t.”
“I’m kidding. Her royal highness is my best friend, but we’ll never be more than that. I’m gay.”
“Oh,” I said stupidly. I’d had a feeling...but rarely trusted my social radar as it never seemed to be calibrated correctly—if at all.
“I’m struggling to interpret ‘Oh…” Chester prodded gently. I realized, horrified, that he might think that I—
“It’s a good oh,” I hurried to reassure him. “I’m bi, so…”
“Oh,” Chester laughed, bumping his shoulder with mine in solidarity. I returned the gesture, then immediately wondered if I did it too hard. “You gotta come with Fleetwood and me to Destyrian pride then,” Chester offered. “That shit’s wild.”
I blinked. That was an unexpected factoid on Destyrian culture. “They have pride?”
“Not the way we think of it,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “There’s no need for it with a society whose default setting seems to be pansexual, I just call it that. It’s this huge five day festival in honor of the lady lovers who laid the foundation of modern Destyr. I think I slept for like a week after. Anyway,” he held up the bandolier, “you should gear up. We’ll be landing on Golyn soon.”
“Already?” I swung the utility belt over my head so that it draped comfortably across my torso.
“Yeah,” Chester confirmed. He leaned over and undid the epaulet on my button up’s left shoulder and fastened it over the bandolier, securing it. “This ship’s built for speed over distance, and Azo’lah is pushing her because we planned a stopover. The Qu’een burns a lot of energy at high speeds, so you have to keep a more sedate pace for distance hauls.”
He stood and caressed the bulkhead affectionately.
“Gret’chen Myaxi and Chester, my Chester!” Fleetwood Mercury’s voice called. The quality was so clear, I wildly thought she had snuck in without my noticing. “Our arrival is intermittent!”
“Imminent,” Chester corrected. “Thanks, FleetMerc.”
“Where did that come from?” I peered about the small cabin, searching for any sign of a speaker.
“Oh, yeah. Ship communications will be transferred through your Ran’dyl.” He pointed to the geometric pin affixed to his beanie. “Azo’lah has yours in the armory. You’ll be getting a wristband. We'll grab it for you before we land.”
“My Ran’dyl?”
“Yeah, it’s like an output device,” he said.
“What’s the point of having this then?” I tapped my gemstoned temple.
“Think of your Ran’dyl as a smaller, much more efficient smartphone. Yes, you’ll be able to use it to communicate, but it will also pull up any image or piece of information you want. You want to pull up the batting stats of the 1996 Chicago Cubs,” the pin on Chester’s beanie projected a list of human names beside batting averages onto the cabin floor, “or maybe you want to call up the exact location of the best Destyrian dessert joint—” The image swapped out for a 3D video projection of a rectangular edifice with ample windows and a sign that I couldn’t read. Smiling Destyrians were eating something crumbly from cups as they exited the establishment.
“Woah,” I said. “That’s—”
“Insanely useful?” Chester supplied.
He rose from my bed and moved toward the door. I reached for my boots but paused as a thought struck me. I didn’t want to keep pushing Chester for information, but this could be my only chance for answers without alien ears listening in. “Chester, wait.”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“That term they keep calling me, what does it mean?”
“Myaxi?” he clarified.
“Yes.”
“I think it would be better if Azo’lah explained that one to you. But it’s a title of honor for the Destyrians. And it’s rare. So don’t be offended by it. They respect you.”
“Okay?” I shoved my feet into my boots to distract myself from my awkwardness.
“Flock to the cockpit, cool cats, it’s time to swing low, daddio,” Fleetwood’s voice sounded again from Chester’s hat.
The ship jumped slightly beneath us, the rumbling retreating to a gentle purr before dying completely. Waving me forward, Chester said, “Come on. Time to see your second alien planet.”
The air on Golyn was heavy, perfumed by the mineral-rich water that painted the planet indigo from space but was a piercing teal in person.
“Wow,” I breathed, taking in the scenery. We had landed in a port town. The nearby pier was constructed entirely from cranberry wood and inlaid with the sea glass that was so popular on Destyr. Ships with wing-shaped sails reared lazily against their moorings.
The buildings were a hodgepodge of modern grey metal and opaque glass, mixed with older, natural-looking dwellings. These were constructed of cranberry wood and white sand stucco, accented by intricate mosaics.
There was clearly a rich history to Golyn.
“Welcome to Gl’all,” Azo’lah said as I descended the ramp. We were parked in a yard populated by other, subtler, spaceships.
Azo’lah had a wickedly sharp stiletto blade strapped to her thigh, and a sleek gun clipped to her hip. She turned away from me, revealing a diamond-shaped opening in the back of her tunic. It framed shining glyphs that curved in an intricate spiral, inked, or at least I assumed so, into her skin.
“It’s the oath of the Myax,” she explained, noticing where my eyes were drawn. “Upon completion of your training and apprenticeship, you take the oath as it is carved and inked onto your person.”
“Carved?” I asked. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the glyphs protruded slightly from Azo’lah’s skin.
Azo’lah nodded knowingly. “Chester had the same reaction. It is an ancient practice on Destyr. When Fulyiti Fleetwood had to invoke an old ritual to grant him her protection, he received the mark of the ruling house on his arm.”
“Hurt like a bitch,” Chester said pleasantly, as he strolled down the ramp, rolling up the sleeve of his flannel. On his forearm was an amethyst mark. Its shape was akin to an abstract jellyfish. “But it's the coolest tattoo I’ve ever seen. Can’t beat this metallic ink they set into the wound.”
I thought it sounded exceedingly painful, but knowing that many cultures had practices of scarification on Earth, I had roughly fifty questions that I wanted to ask about the process. “How did they—”
“Later,” Azo’lah interrupted me, “we have a tight timeline to maintain.”
“Plus, you can look everything up on your own,” Chester added, indicating my new wristband. I smiled, unable to hide my excitement at having a reason to use the alien technology.
“Let us prepare to rumble!” Fleetwood Mercury crowed as she galloped toward us from where she had been speaking with a yard attendant. Fleetwood plastered her arms around Chester’s neck like a large, excitable barnacle.
“Get ready,” Chester corrected gently.
“But, I am ready!” Fleetwood sing-songed as she released Chester’s neck in favor of threading her arm through his. “The ship needs to pass gas, though.”
“What?” Azo’lah said, looking perplexed. Clearly, this sentence made just as much sense when translated into Destyrian by her implant. “The ship requires a refuel. You did speak to the attendant in Destyrian, did you not?”
Fleetwood nodded seriously. “Of course. Although, I told him he was a yellow-bellied guttersnipe because he called my humans ugly. I said that in English.”
“They are ugly,” Azo’lah said matter-of-factly.
“Sorry,” I said, automatically following Azo’lah across the white sand yard.
“They are ugly only to the unenlightened,” Fleetwood Mercury explained loftily.
“Come, while the ship fuels, we will go to the Archive to see if they have any records on the Temple of Aluthua,” Azo’lah said, directing us towards town.
“Here Gret’chen,” Fleetwood pulled out a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from a hidden pocket in her billowing cherry red skirt. “You can match Chester and me. Friendship glasses!”
She and Chester had indeed donned a pair of pink and black tinted sunglasses in the same style, the frames so large they laid easily over Chester’s everyday frames. I slid on the pair offered to me, feeling ridiculous but unable to combat Fleetwood’s earnest expression. “Rock and roll, mothafuckers!” she said solemnly, lacing her other arm through mine.
Feeling a bit like I had fallen into a sci-fi adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, I half stumbled, half skipped with Fleetwood and Chester toward the town’s center. The Destyrians here wore simplistic tunics over straight-legged pants and sandals that displayed their six-toed feet. I was glad for the sunglasses, for, in our mishmash of human clothes and Fleetwood Mercury’s ostentatious get up, we drew more attention than I was comfortable with, or was perhaps even wise. Azo’lah agreed.
“You should have changed before we left the ship, Fulyiti,” she chastised quietly. “Your outfit is...not subtle. You are making my job more difficult.”
“The people of Destyr require exposure to active and foreign cultures, as well as music that shreds,” Fleetwood retorted. “You must get down with your duty to protect, Gret’chen.”
“Protect me?” I clarified, missing a skip-step. Azo’lah side-stepped me to avoid a collision. “Isn’t she your royal bodyguard?”
“The Myax act in the best interest of Destyr. We protect that which is most important to the survival of our planets and our people as a whole,” Azo’lah explained. “Right now, you are of utmost importance. Come, the Archive is this way.”
We turned down a side street, this one populated with more cranberry-wood and white sand stucco-style buildings. “Is this the historic part of town?” I asked.
“This area has been around for several dynasties,” Azo’lah confirmed. “It was built even before the Fulyiti’s family rose to prominence.”
We stopped at the very end of the street, in front of a small, pear-shaped building. This one was made entirely of white sand stucco, with light-colored gems that garnished the oval door and windows. “How old is this place?” Chester asked, removing his sunglasses and straightening his regular frames. “I’ve only seen drawings of places like this in Thal’s archives.”
“It is the only dwelling from the Ancients left in all of our system,” Azo’lah said. “Only it survived the Revisionist Uprisings.” She pressed her palm to a large sea glass oval on the side of the door. The door, unlike the previous ones I had encountered, did not dissolve, but instead rose a few inches from the floor with a soft click. Azo’lah lifted the door the remainder of the way, and we stepped inside.
Like Fleetwood and Chester, I removed my sunglasses so my eyes could better adjust to the dimly lit space, tucking them into an empty pocket on my ammo belt. The floor was cranberry wood, its planks laid out in an intricate design of glyphs similar to those on Azo’lah’s back. Tall stone-adorned shelves lined the walls, piled with meticulously folded, thick fabric, strangely shaped disks, and clear glass boxes full of tiny crystals. At the back of the room, on a sea glass desk, a female Destyrian with mottled violet skin was hunched over a finely woven tapestry, so aged and frayed that, even from half a room away, I could see that it was hanging on with the sheer determination of its caretaker. I desperately wanted to look at it.
Leaning down beside the elderly Destyrian was the most outrageously handsome man I had ever seen. His sharply angular face was offset with carelessly ruffled onyx waves and framed by a perfectly sculpted five-o’clock shadow. At the sound of our footsteps, he looked up, his dark eyes narrowing.
“Ah, if it isn’t my least favorite Myax,” he said in a voice that made me think, ridiculously, of real, Canadian maple syrup—deep, rich, and overly-sweet.
Azo’lah stepped half in front of me. I wondered if this man was dangerous and not just dangerously good looking.
“Shockley,” she returned in an empty, calculating voice.
“This is the Shockley?” Fleetwood Mercury interjected. Even her patented enthusiasm wasn’t enough to clear the tension from the room.
“I see you’ve heard of me.” The man pushed away from the desk. He had broad shoulders encased in a tight dark jacket and narrow hips with black pants that showed off all of his best assets—maybe a little too well. He offered a gallant hand to Fleetwood Mercury. She placed her hand in his and pumped it up and down, thwarting his attempt to kiss it. “Maximillian Danger Shockley,” he continued. “And you must be Fulyiti—”
Someone snorted. It wasn’t until they all turned to look at me that I realized, panicking, that person was me.
“Is something funny?” he asked, eyes raking over my attire. He raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, no. It’s just,” I stammered, “that can’t actually be your name. Maximillian Danger Shockley? Isn’t that a bit much?”
“And who are you to be judging that?”
“Gretchen. Gretchen Borowicz.”
“Well, Gretchen Borowicz,” Shockley said with an ease that greatly opposed the sudden rigidness of his spine, “I assure you my parents weren’t thinking about your approval when they named me. As for it being too much,” he paused dramatically and winked at me, “why don’t you come find out for yourself?”
My face blossomed with color as my entire body flooded with embarrassed heat.
Azo’lah hissed like Sebastian when threatened with a bath.
“So easy,” Shockley tsked in Azo’lah’s direction. “Now, why don’t you tell me what brings a Fulyiti and her pets to the Archive of the Ancients?”
“None of your beeswax,” Fleetwood Mercury replied airily as she moved to approach the desk at the back of the room.
The wizened Destyrian manning it seemed to finally acknowledge our presence, her eyes alighting upon Fleetwood. “Ah, Fulyiti Kezira. I’m honored that the seven-stars crossed our paths.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Shockley stepped in front of Fleetwood, holding up his hands. “I don’t think so, Fulyiti Kezira.”
Fleetwood drew herself up to her full height, only a few inches taller than Shockley. “Fleetwood Mercury is my preferred name.”
“Seriously?” Shockley asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Move aside, Shockley,” Azo’lah commanded as she strode to Fleetwood. “We only wish to look over records of the royal lineage,” she lied smoothly, “not involve ourselves in whatever trouble you seem intent upon starting.”
Shockley’s shoulders sagged. “You’re—you’re only here to look at the Fulyiti’s family tree? But aren’t you going to the—”
The door at the front opened, flooding the room with light. I blinked to dispel my temporary blindness. A voice called good-naturedly, “Yo, Max, we good?”
A young man strode in, not bothering to close the door behind him. He was tall and leanly-muscled, his mouth quirked in a half-grin that revealed perfect teeth. He was dressed much the same as Shockley, though his dark hair was tucked beneath a backward snapback. He was casually handsome, in a baby-faced way—his smooth, brown skin was unmarred by time, his cheeks and dimpled chin looked incapable of growing stubble, and his smile was genuine and bright. His relaxed, elongated gait hinted at years of athletic training. The new arrival quickly scanned the room before turning to Shockley. “Bro, you throwing a party without me? Not cool.”
“Not a party, Bautista,” Shockley corrected. “The Fulyiti Fleetwood Mercury and her crew are here on a little field trip.”
“Field trip?” repeated Bautista scrubbing at the top of his black hat. “Didn’t Pola say—”
Pola. That was the name of the Auhtula threatening war against Fleetwood’s mother unless she proved her right to rule. If Shockley and Bautista were speaking with Pola then…
Azo’lah drew her gun and leveled it at Shockley.
Shockley and Bautista drew their weapons, pointing them at Chester and me.
I froze as my world narrowed to the barrel of the weapon directed at my chest. Chester grabbed me around the waist and backed away shouting, “Woah, woah, let’s hold on—”
“Now, really,” the Archivist interrupted, her rheumy eyes narrowing, “violence within the Archive of the Ancients is strictly prohibited!”
“I knew it!” Azo’lah snarled. “How much is Pola paying you for this, Shockley? How much is that,” Azo’lah spat something in Destyrian that had no direct English translation but made everyone else wince with its vulgarity, “offering you to steal a throne from a rightful Auhtula?”
“Twice my regular fee,” Shockley shrugged.
“Don’t be a fopdoodle,” Fleetwood said. “Pola will feed you to the fishes before she pays, see?”
“We’ve already received half,” Shockley admitted, with a smile that should have qualified as smarmy but was still somehow blinding. “If you’re smart, you’ll stay out of our way. Now, I’d like to lower my weapon so we can have a conversation like civilized beings. Do you think that’s possible, Myax?”
“Considering I don’t trust you, Shockley, no,” Azo’lah replied, withdrawing her stiletto from its sheath.
Bautista dropped his weapon and backed away. “Nope. I’m out. I am not about sharp-edged weapons anywhere near my person.”
Shockley’s eyebrows contracted in frustration. “Tyler—”
“Max, man, we’ve been over this,” Bautista cut him off, his nostrils flaring. “I’m fine with projectiles and close-quarters hand-to-hand until knife-like weapons come into play. Look at this face!” He gestured to his high-cheekbones and straight nose. “I admit a scar would probably only add to all of this, but I’m not willing to take that risk, dude. The aliens love this face.”
Though his eyes remained glued to Azo’lah, Shockley rolled them in annoyance. “Fine. Then grab the map so we can get back to—”
“Map? What map?” I asked, my terror eclipsed by my curiosity. If Shockley and Bautista were working for Pola and going to the Temple of Aluthua on Vas Roya, as well, then possibly this map—
“It’s for our next assignment,” Shockley said smoothly, though his head twitched ever so slightly.
“Liar, liar, pantaloons on fire,” Fleetwood Mercury sang, “hanging from a tempestuous livewire—”
“So close,” Chester whispered.
“Oh, I like that version better,” Bautista said brightly.
Azo’lah shifted her gun closer to Shockley’s face. “What’s the map of, Shockley?”
“Atlantis,” Shockley snarked.
“The Far End of the Black Eye Galaxy.” Bautista continued.
“The Underground Caverns of Kopfalav.”
“The fastest path between galaxies in Abell 2667.”
“A fool-proof—”
“It’s the interior of the Temple of Aluthua!” Fleetwood announced from the desk.
With the rest of us lost in Shockley and Bautista’s ridiculous game of one-upmanship, Fleetwood had snuck by them without anyone noticing.
“How the fuck?” Bautista huffed, lifting his hat with the butt of his weapon to scratch at his forehead.
“God damn it.” Shockley pointed his gun at Fleetwood. The elderly Archivist gasped as she reached to protect not Fleetwood, but the tapestry. “Back away from the desk, Fulyiti!”
Azo’lah rocketed forward, her long, thin blade already at Shockley’s throat. Okay, so Azo’lah was as fast (and scary) as I remembered from my abduction. “How dare you point a weapon at her! Drop it!”
“Drop yours!” Bautista countered. His gun was once again raised but now indenting Azo’lah’s cheek.
Fleetwood seemed unaffected by the scuffle her sneakiness had incited. Her eyes danced across the woven map. “It’s so… beautifully constructed. It shows that the Ancients stored—”
“Fulyiti Fleetwood,” Shockley shouted, his voice crackling with emotion, “please, step away from the desk.” He flicked his wrist, and his gun made a noise, not unlike a game console booting up. “Don’t make me do this. Please.”
“No!” Chester screamed, rushing forward, placing himself between Fleetwood and Shockley’s gun.
Bautista scowled. “Bro, no. Don’t get in the middle of this.”
Chester pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and firmly planted his sneakered feet. “I’m not going anywhere. You want to shoot Fleetwood, then you’re going to have to shoot me first.”
I tripped over my boots to get to Chester’s side. “Me too,” I gasped, knocking into Bautista as I reached Chester. “Shit, sorry, Bautista—”
Bautista shrugged. “No big. And you can call me Tyler—”
Shockley barked, “Tyler, seriously?”
“What?” Tyler shot back. “Just because we’re probably going to have to shoot them within the next few minutes doesn’t mean I can’t have manners right now.”
“Enough of this,” Azo’lah announced. “Chester, Gretchen, remove yourselves from danger. Shockley will be choking on his own blood before he has a chance to pull the trigger.”
“My, you’ve grown arrogant, haven’t you?” A new arrival observed. My heart tripped over itself at the prospect of having to interact with yet another stranger in a high-stress situation.
“Nyc’arra,” Azo’lah greeted, her expression calculatedly blank.
Framed at the entrance of the building was a Destyrian wearing the same dark ensemble as Shockley and Tyler—though her jacket was conspicuously sleeveless. Her lavender arms were impressively muscled. She was taller than even Azo’lah, and her bone-white hair was pulled into a taut bun at the back of her head. She was beautiful and elegant and intimidating in a way none of the other Destyrian’s I had met so far—including Auhtula Ty’uria—had been.
Something in her face sent an itch crawling up my spine.
“Azo’lah,” Nyc’arra greeted coldly. “Fulyiti Kezira. Chester, her Favored.”
“Nyc’arra!” Fleetwood squealed, excitement pulsing off her in waves, but for only a moment, before something sent her shoulders and smile sagging. “Oh, this is uncomfortable tortoise.”
“Hell yeah, it is,” Chester agreed.
Everyone had stilled, their attention ping-ponging between Azo’lah and Nyc’arra. Finally, Nyc’arra said, “It has been a while, Azo’lah.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Azo’lah sneered. She twisted until Shockley was held between them. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t,” Nyc’arra said. “We both know you don’t have it in you to kill a man who isn’t defending himself.” Nyc’arra’s gaze landed on me. “And who is this? A newly acquired human?”
There was a challenge in her too-green eyes that made me want to punch something. “I’m not an acquisition. I’m an archaeologist.”
“Sick, dude,” Tyler said. “Have you ever dug up any skeletons or—”
“Bautista!” Shockley and Nyc’arra cried in tandem.
“Sorry, damn.” Tyler hunched into himself. “Don’t have to bite my head off for showing interest in other people’s lives.”
Nyc’arra examined me as though she could flay me open with just her eyes alone. “And what use is an archaeologist in space?”
I shrugged. “I have no fucking clue.”
“She is not just an archaeologist,” Azo’lah said. “She is Myaxi.”
Shockley, Nyc’arra, and Tyler went eerily still. Shockley looked begrudgingly impressed, Tyler awed, and Nyc’arra dubious.
“Her? Myaxi?” Nyc’arra sneered.
Azo’lah said, “Her battle continues daily.”
As if that made any sense.
Nyc’arra brushed off Azo’lah’s words with a scrunch of her nose. “Shockley, the map?”
“By the Fulyiti,” Shockley bit out against Azo’lah’s hold.
Nyc’arra turned to Fleetwood, who was once again happily surveying the tapestry before her, the Archivist delicately gesturing to points of interest. Nyc’arra’s gaze narrowed as she said, “That is truly unfortunate.”
“Just do it already,” Shockley demanded.
I stepped forward. “Do wha—”
My feet flew out from under me as Tyler’s leg hooked around mine. I toppled to the floor, my head cracking against the wood. Chester landed with a yelp on top of me, his elbow digging into my kidney.
“Ow, shit!” I complained, grabbing at my skull and side. A blur of purple obscured my field of vision. I wondered if I had such a severe concussion that I was already hallucinating colors and shapes.
“Fleetwood,” Chester choked, scrambling to get to his feet. But Tyler’s hand on his ankle dragged him back onto my spleen. Tyler grabbed the heel of my boot and tugged hard. I lashed out with my free foot, landing a kick against his muscular thigh.
“Stay down,” Tyler commanded, dodging my second flail. “It’ll be easier if—”
“Get fucked,” Chester exhaled harshly. “If she hurts Fleetwood—”
Tyler used his hold on our legs to keep us supine. “Relax, Nyc’arra’s all bark and no bite.”
A war cry like Xena, Warrior Princess, rent the air. All three of us swung about to find Fleetwood cartwheeling over the desk, kicking Nyc’arra clean across the face as the aged Archivist hobbled for cover in the back room. A splatter of canary yellow blood painted the edges of the tapestry as Nyc’arra hastily wiped the dribble from her chin.
Fleetwood flung herself forward, landing a double-jab to Nyc’arra’s stomach before darting away. Nyc’arra pursued, her fists repeatedly colliding with Fleetwood’s ribs. Fleetwood responded with a stomp to Nyc’arra’s instep and an elbow to her throat. Nyc’arra sent swift hits to Fleetwood’s face, neck, chest, and thighs.
They were all fluid grace and fatal accuracy, Fleetwood’s overflowing skirts fanning out gracefully with her every move. Watching Destyrians fight was like watching a deadly ballet. Throat shot, dip, blood spatter, spin, attempted eye gouge, leap. It was beautifully bloodthirsty.
“Bautista, the fucking map!” Shockley’s shout pulled Chester, Bautista, and me out of our astonished stupor.
Shockley and Azo’lah were locked in a much less elegant tête-a-tête, though, based on the slice across Shockley’s throat and the river of yellow gushing from Azo’lah’s nose, no less violent. Their guns laid on opposite sides of the room, out of reach, and Azo’lah’s knife was embedded into a nearby shelf.
“Bautista, get the—” Shockley paid for his momentary inattention to Azo’lah, receiving a sucker-punch to the jaw that sent him stumbling into a shelf of glass-boxed gems.
The boxes shattered, glass shards flew. Gems rained down onto the inlaid glyph on the floor.
“Be careful!” I shouted as the crystals shattered on impact.
“Bautista!” Shockley rasped as Azo’lah seized him by the throat and tossed him bodily into a shelf. Blood, both red and yellow, stained the tapestries as they tumbled down on Shockley. My archaeologists’ heart ached at the irreversible damage.
“On it, boss!” Tyler bellowed, releasing us. He vaulted over us with the grace of a lioness, already at the desk faster than Chester, or I could get to our feet. He rolled the tapestry expertly, tucking it gently under his arm. “Max, Nyc, got it!”
“We have to stop them,” Chester said as he hoisted me to my feet.
“How?” I asked, gesturing to my ammunition belt of archaeology brushes.
“Any way we can,” Chester said, picking up a fallen crystal and chucking it at Tyler as he streaked past us.
“Azo’lah!” I yelled, pointing at Tyler as he slid out the front door like a baseball player stealing home and onto the streets of Gl’all. “He has the map!”
Azo’lah abandoned Shockley on the ground and sprinted out the door. As I ran past the lump that was Shockley, he groaned, “Ow, my gallbladder. How does my gallbladder hurt?”
I stopped and grimaced at the blood pouring from his split lip and a nasty gash across his thigh. “Are you dying?”
Shockley propped himself onto his elbows and peered up at me through unfairly long lashes. “I think I’ll survive.”
There was a crash and scream behind us. As I turned to check on Chester and Fleetwood, Shockley propelled himself forward, tackling me to the floor. I thrashed against his weight above me, against his sudden grip around my wrists.
“Hey, relax,” Shockley said, maneuvering up to his knees. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re hurting me right now,” I argued, shaking my bound wrists.
Shockley glared at me and promised, “Well, I won’t be in a second.”
He released me fully, hopped to his feet, and made for the door. “Nyc’arra, we’re going!”
“Coming,” she replied and streaked across my field of vision like a shooting star.
I sat up, gasping. I was not built for fights and chases, I was an archaeologist for crying out loud.
Fleetwood skidded to my side and offered me a hand up. “Gret’chen, are you alright?”
I allowed her to carry my weight to my feet. “I think I’m—”
“We have to help Azo’lah,” Chester cut across me. “She can’t hold them off on her own.”
“True that,” Fleetwood agreed, retwisting one of her fallen buns. Her Queen shirt was missing more than a few rhinestones, and a green-brown bruise was forming beneath her jaw.
Though his beanie was still safely perched atop his head, Chester was equally worse for the wear. His glasses were askew, his periodic table shirt torn along the noble gases, and his flannel was similarly ripped. He had a smattering of scrapes along his right cheek.
“Hurry, hurry, Gret’chen,” Fleetwood urged as she herded us, staggering, out into the sunlight.
“Where did they go?” I asked. The street was full of Destyrians, but there were no signs of a confrontation.
A boom like a triple cannon-blast sounded to the left, a savage siren song leading towards both our quarry and probable destruction. Fleetwood assumed the lead, her long legs carrying her faster than Chester or I could keep up with, even if we were athletic, which we were not. We followed Fleetwood’s bobbing buns through a maze of cranberry and gray edifices. Destyrians walking their six-legged pets, and tending to their gardens stared at us like we were aliens.
Which, well—
“Fuck this, fuck running, fuck everything,” Chester panted, clutching at a stitch in his side.
“Next time there’s a chase involved, count me out,” I agreed. We rounded a four-story home with an entire floor of stained-glass windows and ran smack into Fleetwood.
A few yards away, Azo’lah and Nyc’arra were engaged in a brutal brawl. A ship shaped like an in-flight eagle hovered above them. The ship’s bottom loading door was hanging wide, Shockley dangling from its edge.
“What do we do?” Chester asked.
“We have to get on the ship, stop them,” I said. “Fleetwood, can you—”
But before I could finish my question, Nyc’arra executed a spin-kick combination that sent Azo’lah sprawling in the street. Nyc’arra sprinted to the ship, where Shockley had pulled himself to safety. He held out a hand for Nyc’arra.
“There’s no way,” I said. “That’s gotta be fifteen, twenty feet. She’ll never make it.”
Using the side of a house as a booster, Nyc’arra soared, her long arms extended as she reached out and, miraculously, caught hold of Shockley’s waiting hand.
Chester issued a low whistle. “Hardcore parkour, dude.”
They were too far away to make out their expressions, but the meaning of Shockley’s sarcastic salute was unmistakable as the loading door slowly sealed.
The ship swept low, and one of the wings, emblazoned with the name The Danger Zone, clipped the roof of a house. They gained altitude quickly; the sky swallowing them from view.
“Shit.” Overtaxed from exertion, Chester’s breath whistled through his teeth like steam from a kettle.
“This is bad.” My pulse beat against my brain. “This is bad, right?”
“Fulyiti! Chester! Gretchen!” Azo’lah called from down the street. She was standing once more, looking as pissed off as I was horrified. That is to say, very.
Fleetwood skipped to Azo’lah and cleaned the blood from her mouth and chin, before nuzzling against her shoulder. “I am fine, my dear, my dear,” she reassured her.
I wrapped my arm around Chester’s waist, and like our own breed of four-legged extraterrestrial, we hobbled over to our Destyrians.
“We’re good,” Chester said, the words much higher pitched than usual.
Azo’lah scanned us upon our arrival. “You look extremely unwell,” she told us. “I do not know if it is merely your natural state of existence or because of our exchange with The Dangerous Ones.”
Ignoring the jab, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and asked, “What do we do now? Do we go after them even though they have a considerable head start?” I gestured, needlessly, to the empty sky. “Plus, they have the map of the temple so they know where to go when they get there, which means, even if we caught up, it’d be futile.” An idea, a ridiculously comforting idea, took root and blossomed in that instant. “Wait, does this mean we turn around? Does this mean I can go home?”
Azo’lah’s mouth was a hard line. “Myax do not give up.”
My hope wilted. “So that’s a no?”
“We have to try, right?” Chester said, his breath evening out slightly. “For the Auhtula. Though, our odds of success went right down the drain with them making off with the map. If we had the smallest inkling of where to go in the temple once we got there, that could help us overtake them.”
“Maybe they have a copy of the map back there?” I suggested, pointing towards where we had abandoned the Archivist and the last building of the Ancients.
“Why do we need a copy of the map when we have me?” Fleetwood asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I am all we need!”
Chester placed a placating hand on Fleetwood’s elbow. “Fleetwood, your blind confidence in yourself is really admirable, but it isn’t going to help us find the cloak, coronet, or staff.”
“I am all we need,” Fleetwood repeated stubbornly.
“Fulyiti,” Azo’lah began firmly but stopped as Fleetwood tapped her wristband. Fleetwood turned towards the row of houses, and, along the broadside of a cranberry plank three-story, the layout of an ancient temple was projected.
“Holy shitballs,” I breathed.
Chester’s palms clapped against his forehead. “You took a picture!”
“Pictures with an s, babe,” Fleetwood gloated.
Azo’lah grabbed my shoulder and Fleetwood’s hand, already dragging us back down the street and towards the lot where the Killer Qu’een waited. “We must go now. There is still hope.”
The most disconcerting thing about being in space, I discovered, was that it was difficult to track the passage of time. My body couldn’t decide if it should be awake, burning through the last of the adrenaline from our shocking (hah) encounter on Golyn, or fast asleep in my cabin. The stars winked at the ship as we passed, happy gaseous smears that seemed to shimmy to the playlist of Fleetwood Mercury’s namesakes vibrating out of the ship’s walls.
Unable to resolve my sleep dilemma, I changed into an almost identical, yet equally ridiculous outfit. I emerged from my room to find Fleetwood dragging a protesting Chester down the striped corridor from the cockpit. “You said I could pilot!”
“My pantaloons—“
“Pants—“
“Is that not a sexual breath? Now you are testing me!” Fleetwood beamed, delighted at the prospect. “I am getting better at English.”
“Who told you panting is a sexual breath?” Chester scrubbed at his forehead, wearily. The scratches on his cheek were already healing after a visit to the med bay. “I mean it can be, but what I meant is that now we say pants instead of pantaloons.”
“That is silly. My pantaloons remain sans flame. You can pilot after our sonorous soirée.” She caught sight of me, her expression brightening. “Would you like to join us?”
“You’re having a slumber party?” I asked grinning.
“Azo’lah’s forcing us to rest. We don’t know when we’ll get a chance to sleep again once we land on Vas Roya,” Chester explained.
“Chester makes sounds of contentment when he sleeps. Do you?” Fleetwood looked like she was barely restraining herself from taking my face in her hands again.
“No. I don’t snore,” I said.
Fleetwood hummed appraisingly, her eyes flicking toward my button-up, where the top of my bra peeked out. I hastily did a few more buttons. “Perhaps it is because you have not met someone who could make you feel such contentment.” Fleetwood cocked her head at an angle that seemed oddly specific and terrifyingly erotic.
“Umm...thanks, but I’m not tired?” I panicked.
Chester straightened Fleetwood's neck.
“No doing the courting neck thingy!” He demanded. “And no hitting on Gretchen, you’re freaking her out.“
Fleetwood’s eyes widened, appalled. “I would never hit Gretchen!”
“I’ll explain at our slumber party.” Chester started tugging a begrudging Fleetwood Mercury down the hall, even as the princess reached back toward me.
“I would not hit you, only blissfully tap you in a colloquial manner,” she reassured me.
“I’m gonna go see if Azo’lah needs me.” I flashed a strained smile and hastened to the cockpit. I was absolutely not possessed with insidious curiosity about what sex with a Dysterian would entail. Not at all.
Distracted, I belatedly realized that the cockpit door had dissolved, and I had been creepily staring at the back of Azo’lah’s silver-dipped hair in silence.
The cockpit’s interior looked like the love child of a luxury sports car and a discotheque. It was darkened to provide a better view out the wide cockpit window. The only lighting was provided by two hot pink lava lamps on either side of the control dashboard and the floor, which looked similar to the gorgeous tile floors of Fleetwood's palace, only it was illuminated.
“Did you need something, Myaxi?” Azo’lah asked without turning from where she sat in one of the two pilot’s chairs, her dexterous fingers dancing across the ship’s controls. A brackish bruise marred her jaw, but she was otherwise unmarked from our time on Golyn. Cleanly outfitted and calm, I was almost able to forget how lethal she could be. “Or did you just want to escape the Fulyiti’s flirtations?”
An echo of Fleetwood and Chester faded with the distant disembodiment and subsequent rematerializing of the door to Fleetwood’s cabin.
“How did you know she was flirting with me?” I asked, self-consciously tucking a stray wisp of hair behind my ear. Was I being spied on?
“She has done little else since you arrived. Also, I had the external comms activated to ensure that she followed my orders to rest,” Azo’lah replied.
“Does the Fulyiti know you’re watching her?” I asked, settling into the co-pilot’s seat on Azo’lah’s left. The jet-black, sparkling upholstery was surprisingly comfortable, despite appearing very stiff.
“To look out for Fulyiti Kezira is my duty as a Myax, just as it is now my duty to protect you,” Azo’lah replied simply.
“And maternal spying is included in that?” I quipped. I blushed furiously at my sass and turned my attention to the viewport. Vas Roya’s rust-red atmosphere beckoned us from a distance.
“The maternal spying is included with cousinhood,” Azo’lah said dryly, her attention following my gaze. “The Auhtula is my mother’s sister. As our ages are similar, Fulyiti Fleetwood and I were raised closely together. It was I who was her sparring partner when she underwent her training.”
It explained a lot about the dynamic between the two of them, and how Azo’lah was able to chastise the princess in ways no one else seemed willing or able to do. “You trained Fleetwood Mercury? Is she a Myax, too?” I asked. I turned my face away from the viewport, toward the strangely pleasing angularity of Azolah’s profile.
“No,” Azo’lah answered, surprised. She caught my gaze and continued. “She has never endured the darkness. But a Fulyiti must learn to defend herself. As a member of the ruling house, no matter how beloved, she may face threats from those who are misguided or unstable.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to turn away. “Can I ask why you keep calling me Myaxi then? I didn’t undergo any training—clearly.”
“Myax and Myaxi are terms in the ancient language of Vas Roya. I forgot that your implant was not able to translate the term for you. I am surprised Chester did not tell you,” Azo’lah said, one silver brow rising.
“He...” I glared down at my knees. “He told me I should ask you.”
“And he was right to do so,” Azo’lah murmured. “Myax translates roughly into, ‘she who survived herself.’ It is for those who survive the internal darkness. I believe your people refer to it as the Depression.”
“Wait,” I said, swiveling my chair to face hers, “are you saying that every single member of the elite guards of Destyr have been depressed?”
“Of course,” Azo’lah confirmed as if this was not a strange and revolutionary idea.
“How? Why?” I probed, startled, and, as always, when learning about a new culture, insatiably fascinated.
“Because she who can survive herself, can survive anything,” Azo’lah grinned. “You will never face an enemy more cunning, or more skilled at deceit and hurtfulness than your own being attempting to destroy itself.”
“That’s…” I trailed off, unable to refute the raw truth of her statement.
“You are Myaxi, meaning, ‘she who survives herself’,” Azo’lah explained. “You are worthy of honor without training, for unlike the Myax, your darkness will ever linger, like that of Mahlina, the Kind, Grand Auhtula of old.” Azo’lah studied me, her navy eyes bottomless as an ocean. “It is strange to find a soul similar to an Ancient in one not of our world.”
I snorted. “Sorry,” I apologized quickly when Azo’lah’s brow furrowed. “It’s just, mental illness isn’t uncommon where I am from. On Earth, many people struggle with anxiety and depression. But it’s only recently that we’re beginning to talk about it. Most of the time, it’s viewed as weakness.” Azo’lah look of outrage was so potent, I recoiled into my seat. “Sorry.”
“Why do you do that?” she snapped, flicking a few switches on the controls with more force than strictly necessary.
“Do what?”
“Apologize for the wrongs of others. I insult you, and you apologize, the imbeciles on your planet shame you and you apologize for their mistake. It is...” she trailed off with a sigh.
“I’m sorry!” I said, wincing, even as the words came out of my mouth.
“Is this your darkness that speaks?” Azo’lah asked.
Unsure how else to explain it, I whispered, “In a way.”
“Worry not, ugly one, I shall help you,” Azo’lah said matter-of-factly.
“You’re not helping by calling me ugly,” I retorted.
“Ah, there are your teeth, Myaxi,” Azo’lah said, sounding smugly satisfied. “I am glad we found them.”
“Humans don’t usually fight with their teeth.”
Azo’lah reached for the panel overhead and fiddled with a few switches. “Destyrians do not either unless it is a last resort. Yet they can be a weapon. Use everything at your disposal to defend yourself. That is the first lesson of becoming a Myax.”
“Uhm...I don’t think I’ll be sticking around long enough to complete the training,” I said.
Azo’lah just smirked in a way that was uncomfortably knowing. “Of course, Myaxi,” she said, turning back to the cockpit window. And in silence, we watched Vas Roya loom ever closer.
Chester set a plate of goop the color of spinach and the consistency of glue in front of me. “Eat up,” he instructed, handing me a spoon. He sidled onto the stool to my left, our elbows jostling at the close proximity. The avocado-green nook-sized galley barely had enough space for a table and four seats, let alone the countertop and cabinets wedged in the corner.
“What is this?” I asked, sniffing it cautiously. It smelled overly herbaceous.
“It looks foul, but it’s not too bad,” Chester said, rolling up the sleeves of the blue coveralls he was now sporting and digging into his sludge. “It’s packed with nutrients and vitamins and blah, blah, blah.”
I took a bite and stifled my gag reflex. It tasted worse than it looked.
“All right, it tastes like gym socks and the bottom of the garbage disposal got together and had a food baby,” Chester conceded, shoveling in another spoonful, “but you get used to it.”
Fleetwood Mercury swanned into the kitchen, bellowing, “Guten morgen, bitches!”
Her navy tresses were rewound into her typical twin buns, but she had traded out her pants-skirt combo for a coverall spacesuit that matched Chester’s, reaching from just below her chin down to her booted feet. But unlike Chester, Fleetwood had left the jacket unzipped to display a new, but no less bedazzled Queen shirt.
“Guten morgen?” I replied. After my discussion with Azo’lah, I had returned to my cabin for a few hours of sleep. But instead of resting, I spent the time tossing and turning, over-analyzing every possible way things could go wrong once we landed on Vas Roya. I assumed I currently looked as drained and worried as I felt.
My spoon dropped into my goop with a splat, sending green flecks across the table's reflective surface. “Wait, what time is it? Is it morning? How do we tell time up here?”
“It’s hella early,” Chester assured me as Fleetwood danced toward the cupboards that held the food supplies, dishes, and what appeared to be a human microwave. He held up my wristband to my face, which displayed the time as 03:39. “Destyrians have a 26 hour day, and the ship’s time syncs with Central Continent Standard. You’ll adjust easily enough.”
“I won’t be here long enough to adjust,” I replied automatically as Fleetwood sat across from me, a very familiar-looking box clutched in her six-fingered hands. “Froot Loops!” I screeched. “There are Froot Loops on this ship, and you fed me this!” I shook my plate in Chester’s face. My goop jiggled dangerously. “How are there Froot Loops on this ship?”
“I brought them back with me last time I green beamed down to Earth,” Chester explained as Fleetwood filled a bowl to the brim with cereal. “Fleetwood has some exceptionally specific obsessions. She also asked me to bring back Spam, eggnog, and gummy worms.”
“Would you like some Color-O’s, Gret’chen?” Fleetwood asked me, holding out the cereal box to me.
“Hell yes!”
Chester knocked my hand from the box. “No, she would not because she is not a monster who eats dry cereal.”
“Destyrians don’t have a milk equivalent?” I asked, my interest piqued.
Chester gestured mockingly at Fleetwood’s bowl. “FleetMerc, show her.”
Fleetwood drowned her cereal in the goop.
“Does that make it taste better?” I asked as Fleetwood inhaled half a dozen bites.
Fleetwood’s cheeks bulged as she held out her spoon to me. “Would you like a sample?”
I shrugged and accepted.
Chester groaned. “Oh, God, no, Gretchen. That’s sacrilegious, how can you—”
I chewed quickly, pleasantly surprised that the sweet cereal balanced out the flavor of the goop enough to make it palatable.
Azo’lah entered the room. She wore the same spacesuit as Fleetwood, except with a few Myax upgrades, like an armored chest plate and a shoulder guard. The tight fit of the suit gave her strong shoulders and tall frame an authoritative bearing that Fleetwood lacked. I gulped as I looked her over. A new, equally-terrifying stiletto blade was strapped to her thigh, her gun clipped to her hip. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail that trailed, glittering like snow, down her back. “Good, you’re all awake,” she said by way of greeting.
She strode to the table and pushed aside all of our dishes. She grabbed Fleetwood’s arm and tapped her wristband twice. A 3-D video of Shia LeBeouf screaming at us began to play between us.
I met Chester’s eyes and stifled my laugh as he muttered, “I don’t even want to know.”
“Fulyiti, the temple schematics, please,” Azo’lah said, her tone edged with amused irritation.
Mouth still filled with cereal-goop Fleetwood silently complied, replacing Shia LeBeouf with a photo of the Temple of Aluthua. The tapestry rendering, though faded in places, was quite detailed. The temple’s height and trapezoidal shape reminded me of those built by the Aztecs. It had a top floor with an antechamber, and a large, singular inner chamber. There were seven floors below that one, each with various rooms and complex hallway systems that branched out in nonsensical patterns with a centrally located, spiral staircase. Our goal, the room built to protect the sacred relics, was on the third subfloor.
Azo’lah’s finger jabbed at the room. “This is our primary destination. Though we cannot be sure the cloak, coronet, and staff will be there, it is where we will start. We’ll enter the temple through what remains of the main entrance,” her elegant fingers traced to the top of the schematic, “and in order to avoid confrontation with the Dangerous Ones, we will not use the main stairs. Instead, we will use the Myax door off the main chamber to get to the fourth floor—”
“The Myax door?” I asked, leaning closer to where Azo’lah’s finger traced along the photo projection.
“Every Auhtula has a First Myax. After they perish, they are buried together so the Myax can protect her Auhtula in the next realm,” Azo’lah explained. “There are two entrances to the tomb so that in the unlikely event of the Auhtula perishing before her Myax, the Myax could join her Auhtula without disturbing her rest.” Azo’lah tugged at her ponytail, tightening its invisible holder. “Even with Nyc’arra’s knowledge, I doubt Shockley will think to use the Myax door.”
I gnawed on my thumb nail. “So we get in and go down one extra floor, how do we get to where we need to go?”
“Myaxi, with your expertise, you will find the way through the temple.” I stifled a too-close to hysterical sound, unsure how half a decade’s worth of education made me an expert at navigating alien ruins. “Chester, you will stay with the Killer Qu’een in the event a quick take-off is necessary. Fulyiti, you will accompany Myaxi and me into the temple.” Azo’lah stood up to her full height and assessed Fleetwood with a stern gaze. “I dislike taking you into danger, but you will be a great help to Gretchen with your knowledge of the Ancients’ language. And with Nyc’arra at Shockley’s side, I will need all of the assistance I can get if a confrontation presents itself.”
Fleetwood saluted Azo’lah, colorful bits of half-masticated food flying from her lips as she chirped, “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
Azo’lah’s voice went as rigid as her posture. “You will stay with us. You will not wander off, you will not touch anything Myaxi deems dangerous.” I felt my neck flare hot, flattered, and trepidatious, that Azo’lah was placing such authority in my hands. “Nor” Azo’lah continued, “will you seek out the Dangerous Ones—”
“You’re making this boring,” Fleetwood complained.
“Good, maybe that will keep you in line.” Azo’lah grinned, squeezing Fleetwood’s shoulder. “Any questions?”
“Roughly a thousand,” I said. “How are we getting into the temple if it was ruined in the solar flares? This tapestry is useful, but it was woven before the temple was destroyed, so we have no way of knowing if hallways or doorways are collapsed! And how exactly are we getting through,” I pointed both of my hands towards our intended destination, “the Myax door? Are we just assuming it’s already open and not caved in? What are we going to do if the relics aren’t—”
“I understand you are worried, but we will be flexible in all aspects of our mission,” Azo’lah calmly interrupted as though that were an acceptable response to all of my questions. “We land on Vas Roya within the half-hour. I expect you all to be suited up and ready to go.”
I gaped at her back as she exited the room. I turned to Chester and Fleetwood, my hands fluttering in flailing supplication. “We aren’t even remotely prepared for this! That’s, like, thirty percent of a plan at best!”
Fleetwood ignored my extremely valid point and instead chose to bury her face in her bowl.
Chester shrugged, lifting his plate to his mouth. He slurped the rest of his goop. “We’ll figure it out. If Shockley and his band of misfits can get in there, so can we.”
“Which reminds me,” I inhaled sharply. “What’s the deal with you guys and Shockley? And Nyc’arra! What in the world was all that tension about between her and Azo’lah?”
Chester swiped a stray dribble of goop from his chin. “Azo’lah and Nyc’arra were, uh, together, when Fleetwood first brought me up. Some shit went down, I don’t know the details, but it was ugly—”
“U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no apple pie,” Fleetwod sang happily.
“—and Nyc’arra just disappeared,” Chester ignored the interruption. “Yesterday was the first time we’ve seen her in five months.”
I choked out a half-sob and pressed my forehead into the cool tabletop. As if this mission needed any further complications, now we had ex-girlfriends pitted against one another. Just perfect.
“Do not cry, Gret’chen,” Fleetwood said. She tapped her wristband and brought up videos of raccoons digging through garbage bags. “Watch the trash pandas find their joy, and you will find yours too.”
“We’re all going to die,” I moaned.
Chester patted my back and held up the vat of goop. “Still hungry?”
We broke Vas Roya’s atmosphere twenty minutes later, the blanket of stars and endless possibility replaced by a muddied, foggy sky. It felt like a fitting metaphor for my rapidly depleting mood.
“And you’re sure I’ll be able to breathe out there?” I asked from my seat behind Azo’lah in the cockpit.
“Yes,” Azo’lah replied. She pointed through the haze, directing Chester, “Seventeen degrees due north.”
Chester nodded, gleefully jostling the ship controls and rocketing us in the right direction.
“Oh, fuck!” I slammed against the back of my seat.
“WOOOOO!” Fleetwood cheered, hands held high like she was riding the universe’s best rollercoaster.
“We should be just about there,” Azo’lah announced. The ship shuddered to an abrupt mid-air halt. “Take us down.”
The closer we got to the surface, the less opaque the haze became. A desolate landscape stretched before us. A whole city decimated and half-buried beneath sand. I bit back an anticipatory smile. My hands itched to grab my instruments and begin exploring. The number of things one could learn about an ancient civilization from a simple dwelling alone was—
“There it is,” Chester said, his voice awed.
I turned to follow his sightline and gasped. The Temple of Aluthua was gargantuan, even if it was missing its roof. It was four-sided, windowless, and at least three hundred feet tall. I had been right in my assessment of the schematic—it did resemble an Aztec temple quite closely in shape, but where the Aztecs decorated their temples in glyphs, the Temple of Aluthua was smooth with minimal decoration on the outside. The only entrance was at the top of a staircase that zig-zagged up the front of the main structure. Sections of steps were decimated or flat-out missing. Long-past cave-ins had created rivers of rubble along the temple’s base.
We landed with a jerk that I barely noticed. I undid my seat belt and hastened to get a closer look. “How old did you say it is again?”
“Our people left Golyn three thousand years ago,” Azo’lah said. “We spent double that amount of time inhabiting Golyn—”
My jaw dropped. “You’re telling me this structure is at least nine thousand years old?”
My wonder for the architectural and archaeological marvel before us was ignored as Chester said, “Danger Zone, three o’clock.”
“It’s three o’clock already?” Fleetwood asked, going to Chester’s side.
“No, it’s an—not important,” Chester replied, pointing to the Danger Zone. Their docking door was lowered to the ruddy sand. “It looks like Shockley and company have already deboarded.”
Azo’lah said something in Destyrian that my implant couldn’t translate but made my head tingle uncomfortably. She unstrapped from her seat and strode to the back of the cockpit. “Myaxi, Fulyiti, let’s go.”
“Forward march!” Fleetwood cried out. She pressed a smacking kiss to Chester’s forehead and whispered, “Stay safe, favored one. I’ll return in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Chester grabbed Fleetwood’s hand as it left his shoulder and kissed the back of it. “Listen to Azo’lah, Fleetwood. Seriously. Please. We don’t need a repeat of what happened on Lahtel.”
“What happened on Lahtel?” I asked.
“We promised never to speak of it again,” Chester answered as Fleetwood dipped her chin, charmingly chastised.
“Come, Gret’chen,” Fleetwood attempted to usher me from the cockpit. “No need to worry, I’ve got your ass!”
“Got her back!” Chester corrected.
“That as well!” Fleetwood agreed magnanimously as she passed by me, patted my head, and disappeared into the hall.
“That isn’t particularly reassuring,” I muttered.
Chester held up my bandolier filled with archaeology tools. A canteen of water now hung from a carabiner beside the buckle. “Don’t forget this.”
“Thanks,” I grabbed the belt and slung it over my shoulder, snapping it securely.
“Be careful.” Chester took my hand and squeezed. “Don’t do anything stupid or reckless or—”
I laughed at that. “Chester, look at me. Do I look like the reckless type?”
“She asks from the cockpit of a spaceship that she’s about to deboard so she can go scavenging in a half-destroyed temple for long-forgotten mystical artifacts on behalf of an alien queen she met yesterday.”
I glared at him, playfully shoving at his shoulder. “There’s no need to call me out like that.”
Chester dropped into the pilot’s seat, chuckling. “Go get ‘em, Myaxi.”
I rolled my eyes and patted the cargo pocket of my borrowed pants. My pill bottle rattled back hearteningly. “Alright, let’s do this shit.”
I learned the hard way that lessened gravity and awkward people did not mix as I tripped my way onto Vas Roya’s dusty surface. Everything around me was too light, making me feel like an over-inflated balloon.
I looked up at the muddy clouds, and the world spun.
Azo’lah grabbed my waist to prevent me from collapsing to my knees. “Take a moment, Myaxi. This planet is oxygen-rich. You must let yourself adjust.”
I gripped Azo’lah’s forearm as I oriented myself to my surroundings. I cupped my hand above my eyes to protect against the swirls of sand. Before us, the temple rose, battered but proud. To our distant left, the ruins of the city winked at me through the haze of heat. To our right, about 600 feet away, was The Danger Zone, its sterling hull already taking on a sepia-tone from all of the wind-tossed sand. Behind it, on the far horizon, saffron-tinted mountains pierced the clouds.
After a moment of allowing my breathing to adjust, my mind cleared. “I’m ready.”
Azo’lah turned to Fleetwood, who was stooped over, doodling in the sand. “Fulyiti, are you prepared?”
“Lock, stock, and barrel, partner,” Fleetwood replied, bouncing to her feet. Azo’lah led us across the barren landscape at a clipped pace, and, by the time we reached the base of the temple, my neck bandana was drenched in sweat. I was grateful I had the foresight to leave my leather jacket aboard the Killer Qu’een.
I laid a reverent hand against the sand-worn stone. Another species constructed this building thousands of years ago, and I was now touching it. I allowed myself a brief moment to bask.
“So, how are we getting up?” I asked, squinting at the temple’s jagged top. The stairs were intact for parts of the ascent, but there were huge, horrifying gaps where no clear path upward was present.
Azo’lah reached into a zippered pocket on her thigh, from which she procured two pairs of black gloves. “We climb.”
I laughed until sand caught in my windpipe, and I coughed loudly. Upon realizing she was serious, I screeched, “Climb? You want to climb this?”
“Yes.” Azo’lah thrust a pair of gloves into my hands. They had six fingers and were made for someone much larger but, as I pulled them on, they molded to my palm. The material felt silky, more suited to attending an opera than scaling a ruin.
“I don’t climb!” I protested as Fleetwood, already donning her gloves, started ascending the zig-zag steps. “I was not built for climbing! I was built for gentle walks on flat surfaces in moderate climates!”
Azo’lah produced a pair of oversized goggles from her pocket and passed them to me. “There is no other way.”
“Why don’t we go back to the ship and have Chester drop us off up there!” I very reasonably pointed out.
“Because none of us, Chester included, have the ability to pull up close enough to the temple’s apex to drop us off without threatening to send the rest of it toppling,” Azo’lah returned. “Our objective is to obtain the holy relics, not bury them further. I will not risk it.”
“But it doesn’t even have a roof!” I shouted as Azo’lah pushed me towards the steps. I stubbornly dug my boots into the sand, which did little good against Azo’lah’s strength. “What about the green beam of light?”
My stomach churned at my own suggestion, but anything was better than the prospect of climbing.
“The Killer Qu’een is not equipped with that technology.”
“Well, that’s stupid.” My restless fingers tugged at the goggle strap as I said, “I doubt I’ll be able to make this climb in one piece.”
Azo’lah grabbed me by the shoulders. “You are Myaxi. This will be no more difficult than what you already conquer daily.” Though her words should not have fortified me, they did. “Come, Gretchen, Fulyiti Fleetwood, and I will help you.”
Above us, Fleetwood leaped across a chasm of rubble with joyful yawp.
I snapped the goggles on, grit my teeth, and followed Azo’lah up the first set of still intact steps.
“I don’t think it’s humanly possible to make that,” I said, once we reached the gap that Fleetwood had so easily crossed. It was at least a ten-foot diagonal jump upward.
“I will not let anything bad happen to you,” Azo’lah promised, her hand a stern, guiding force at the small of my back.
Fleetwood, who had waited for us, smiled down at me, her arms held wide. “I’ll catch you!”
I looked up at the top of the temple, back at the ground where the Killer Qu’een still sat. I had already come this far, I might as well commit to the adventure.
“Fuck it,” I said, launching myself towards Fleetwood. The moment I was no longer touching ground with my arms spread wide, I felt as hollow-boned as a bird. “HOLY SHIT!” But even with the advantage of lessened gravity, a superhero I was not. The required height and distance of the jump were too much for my out of shape self to make. I flailed mid-air as I realized my demise was imminent. My arms reached, only to meet solid flesh. Fleetwood’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. I choked on my relief as she hauled me up with one strong arm and set me easily on my feet.
Azo’lah landed beside Fleetwood with the same grace as Sebastian jumping to the top of the refrigerator. “See, Myaxi,” she said, brushing off the sandy knees of her sleek suit. “Well done.”
“Well done? I almost—I almost didn’t make it!” I stammered as Azo’lah and Fleetwood pulled me forward. My pulse hammered in my throat—I was scared, but I wasn’t panicking. Yet.
“But you did make it,” Azo’lah said breezily, her attention already turned to the next obstacle on our assent.
“Are you ready to press on, Gret’chen?” Fleetwood asked, her eager eyes searching mine. The first fifteen minutes of our mission were already meeting her sky-high expectations of adventuring.
I unhooked the canteen from my bandolier and took a long drink. “I guess?”
Fleetwood cheered and smacked my butt enthusiastically. “Told you I had your ass!”
Climbing the temple took significantly less time than I had estimated it would. After I successfully crossed my fourth rubble canyon, Azo’lah allowed us a short break. Unfortunately, the higher we climbed, the trickier the passes became. The final section of missing steps required actual rock-climbing. Thankfully, the grip of the gloves was exceptional, and I had the support of two very fit Destyrians to guide me—I don’t think I would have been able to do it on my own.
I dropped like a drunk undergrad at the top of the steps and stretched my aching body across the wide landing. I removed my climbing gloves, tucked them into my pants’ pocket, and took two long gulps from my canteen. “Thank God that’s over.”
“Don’t forget we have to climb back down once we’ve attained the relics,” Azo’lah smirked.
I groaned and massaged my calves. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were burning from exertion. Apparently, lessened gravity didn't eliminate muscle fatigue completely.
Fleetwood hauled me to my feet and toward the lone temple entrance.
Like the rest of the structure, the scarred doorway was bare of decoration. Above it, a chunk three times my size was missing from a curled pediment that cloaked us in its generous shadow.
Through the archway, I spied an ornately designed floor. Unable to resist my curiosity’s pull, I entered the antechamber. Without the protection of the roof, the floor had weathered thousands of years of battering from sand and wind, but it was still beautiful. It shone like the inside of an abalone seashell, rainbow when the sunlight caught it, gray in the shadows. In a spiral similar to Azo’lah’s tattoo, glyphs radiated out from the center of the antechamber. I bent over, ran my gloved fingers over the closest glyph. It glittered like a diamond beneath my touch.
“Careful,” Azo’lah whispered above me. I snatched my hand back. “The Temple of Aluthua is believed to still house the power of the Ancients.”
“It’s incredible,” I breathed, rising. I crossed to one of the tiled walls. Like the floor, inlaid glyphs formed intricate patterns, spreading like the tails of a kite on a rising breeze.
“It is a prayer of protection.” Fleetwood moved to stand beside me. “Faulty as fuck, obviously.”
“Fulyiti,” Azo’lah hissed. “At least attempt to be respectful.”
“Why?” Fleetwood asked.
I missed Azo’lah’s response as my attention was stolen by the archway that led into the main chamber. The floor was identical to that of the antechamber save for the gaping mouth to the left that was the main stairwell and a centralized, empty plinth—a barren sentinel guarding the remnants of a bygone era.
Bypassing the stairwell, I went directly to the plinth. “What stood here?”
“Myaxi, please don’t wander from my side,” Azo’lah scolded, dragging Fleetwood behind her. Her eyes scanned the chamber, alert. “Something is here. Something that brings me great unease.”
“Nyc’arra,” Fleetwood supplied. “Nyc’arra brings you great unease.”
Azo’lah’s jaw clenched. “That is not what I meant, Fulyiti.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I prodded. I knelt before the plinth to inspect it, drawing one of the brushes from my bandolier. “Do you know what stood here?”
“The Ancients,” Fleetwood replied. “This is where they stood when they attempted to commune with the Great Ones.”
My curiosity piqued. “The Great Ones?”
“Our deities,” Azo’lah clarified, coming over to me. “Or what were our deities. A great many Destyrians no longer believe in them.”
“Fascinating,” I remarked.
Azo’lah tugged on my collar. “This is not why we are here, Myaxi. We do not know how much of a head start the Dangerous Ones have. We must begin our search.”
“Fine,” I conceded, begrudgingly returning my brush to its designated slot. “But if we have any extra time…”
Azo’lah gestured to the temple’s back wall, her footsteps light as she led us to a large cluster of glyphs. “The Myax door,” she said, her voice the closest to reverence I had ever heard. She placed her hand at the center of the largest glyph. A moment later, as if carved by an invisible hand, the seams of a door appeared. After a long moment, the door slid to the side, revealing an enshadowed stairwell. It twisted downwards, like an unspooling rope.
I gaped. “How did you do that?”
Azo’lad shrugged nonchalantly. “I am Myax.” She reached into her back pocket and retrieved a pod the size of a golf ball. She clipped it to her suit and tapped it. Illuminated, it was a tiny cerulean sun. “You have some in your belt, Myaxi.”
I found three in a pocket, chose one, and attached it to my shirt collar.
“Stay close,” Azo’lah repeated, her keen eyes staring down into the darkened depths. “And be prepared for anything. Fulyiti, eyes out for Shockley.”
Azo’lah descended, her light casting a soothing glow upon the barren walls. Fleetwood and I followed. The moment we crossed the threshold, the door groaned shut behind us.
“Oh, I do not like that,” I said, heart thundering. I slapped my palms against the door. It did not budge. We were trapped. “Hey, let us out!”
“Only way out is in,” Fleetwood crooned and maneuvered me calmly toward the stairs.
We descended slowly, carefully. Destyrians were, on average, taller than humans, and the way they built stairs spoke of a long-legged people light on their feet. With my average-human build, every step required my full attention and still resulted in a jarring impact through my knees and up my spine. I did not relish the thought of climbing back up to the top once we had acquired the relics.
Azo’lah’s palm slid along the wall, seemingly noting every turn in the staircase.
“Soon, soon,” she announced in an echoing whisper after the third turn.
“And then we’ll be one floor below where we need to go?” I asked.
“Yes, My—” Azo’lah fell sharply silent. There was a vibration up my spine, like the shifting of tectonic plates, but everything remained still. All three of our light pods extinguished.
Azo’lah was the first to tap hers back to life.
“What the hell was that?” I hissed.
“The Ancients,” Fleetwood whispered.
“It was not the Ancients, ” Azo’lah asserted. Beneath us, the stairs shivered. She turned back to look at us, the elegant lines of her face tight with concern. “We get to the third floor, we obtain the relics, and we immediately evacuate this temple. Yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed fervently.
My curiosity could no longer counterbalance the ominous feeling that something was seriously amiss here. The sooner we got back to Destyr, the safer we would all be.
“One more floor,” Azo’lah hurried down the remaining stairs as quickly as safety allowed.
We came to another wall of glyphs. Azo’lah’s hand hovered above the same symbol that had been inscribed on the Myax door. “Remember, we will be entering the chamber of the first Auhtula and her Myax. Respect their peace.”
I murmured, “Of course.”
“Duh,” Fleetwood replied.
Azo’lah lowered her palm, and like before, a door appeared and slid open. We stumbled out of the stairwell as it closed, its seams dissolving into the wall. Azo’lah pressed her hand against where the door had been, but nothing happened.
I gulped and turned, expecting to find the large chamber from the tapestry. Instead, there was a long, winding passageway.
“This is the Myax burial chamber?” I asked. I had never seen a burial site like this.
Azo’lah’s voice was hoarse when she said, “No. It is not.”
“It’s not?” I turned to her, dread knotting my gut. “But you said—”
“It should be. We should be on the fourth floor, in the Myax tomb, but we are—”
“By the Archives,” Fleetwood announced. She pointed to a lone glyph glinting along the wall.
“The Archives,” I repeated, pulling up my mental image of the temple schematic. “But that’s...”
“On the seventh subfloor,” Azo’lah finished for me. “The stairs have brought us to the bottom of the temple.”
I said, “I thought the Myax stairs only led into the tomb on the fourth subfloor!”
Azo’lah’s brow creased, and her mouth puckered with unease. “They do.”
“Then how did we end up three floors lower than we were supposed to?” I asked. The sound echoed eerily down the cavernous hall.
“The Ancients,” Fleetwood said blithely.
“Not the Ancients,” Azo’lah corrected softly. “The temple.”
I tugged at my ponytail. We had barely started this mission, and already everything had veered wildly off course.
Azo’lah rolled her shoulders, regained her composure. “This changes nothing. We must go to the third floor. Come, we must cover more ground to—”
Just as my whisper had echoed down the hallway earlier, a shout ricocheted back to us. This one excited and off-puttingly familiar. “Bro, this place is huge. Do you think these Ancient dudes ever just, like, got lost in their own house?”
“I doubt it, Bautista.”
Shockley.
I met Azo’lah’s wide, navy eyes, and we both cursed in our respective languages. Not only had the temple somehow spit us out three floors from our destination, but it had delivered us right into the arms of our enemy.