Ilisa was used to
crossing from Raan to New Orbus in just a couple of hours, but the
ancient ship was much slower; she wasn't sure why she hadn't realised
that even before she fired the ancient ship up. The fact that it was
ancient wasn't her only clue that it wouldn't be quite up to scratch
as modern ships; it creaked when it started up, and it had been
creaking a lot since then.
But none of that
mattered now; she could see New Orbus now, the grey orb of salvation.
She set the controls to autopilot and sat with the comatose Strom.
Putting his head in her arms, she cradled it against her chest, one
hand running through his black hair, and began to speak.
“Strom?” Her voice
was more high-pitched than usual, but she tried to stay calm. “I
know you can hear me. You're gonna be just fine; doctors on New Orbus
gonna wake you up.” She smiled, relaxed. There was silence for a
moment as she held his hair in her hand. It was damp with sweat, but
still strangely soft. “Do you remember how we met? Those twats
giving me a hard time because I'm a woman? Didn't trouble me ever
again.” She gave a short laugh. “They're probably dead now
though...” She felt no real sadness at that prospect; all they were
to her were just nameless tormentors. “You were my hero. And now
I'm yours.” She smiled briefly. “How times change.” She kissed
Strom's forehead, before heading back over to the controls.
A display was flashing
green, which she presumed wasn't normal. On inspection of the
display, she noted that, just behind her own craft, several others
had materialised from L-Drive travel. She inspected the ships closer,
activating the ship's rear camera and zooming in.
To see the unmistakable
wedge of The Dominion.
Around the Xaosian
flagship, smaller ships were locked into a defensive spread,
surrounding The Dominion in a spherical formation. Ilisa bit
her lip, not quite knowing what to do; her first thought was that
they had followed her, but she realised that The Dominion
had already left the system before her, and that she was nowhere near
important enough to follow. Instead, she assumed that Xaos meant to
attack New Orbus. She rubbed her hand over her face and sighed
heavily, before leaping on the controls. She veered towards New
Orbus, putting on a burst of speed; she had to get Strom there before
the fighting.
New
Orbus's Orbital Defence System seemed to be fully up and running, and
Ilisa was thankful for that as she passed it; the Xaosians could be
slowed down at least. A satellite near to her exploded, and she
shrieked as the shrapnel crashed against her ship. A red light
flashed on one of the displays; a wing was damaged. More of the
satellites were blasted into oblivion, shrapnel drifting past and
into the ship. The ship rocked and swerved off course. Ilisa fell
from her seat. Strom's prone body slid across the floor. Ilisa gasped
in pain as her head smashed against the controls. She felt the back
of her head and found a sticky patch in her dark hair; bleeding. She
cursed, before getting back into her seat. The ship was hit by
something from behind as she entered New Orbus's atmosphere. Shrapnel
burnt up behind her, but still fell, acting as miniature fireballs
cracking the hull. Ilisa tried to keep the ship on course. The city
was in her sights, but too far away. She tried to steer over, and the
city got ever closer.
A
piece of burning shrapnel finally breached the hull, distracting
Ilisa just enough for her to lose control of the burning ship. When
she turned back to the screen, she knew there was no chance of
reaching the city now. She turned off the displays and sat next to
Strom.
“I've
failed you.” A tear punctuated the short sentence, splashing on her
lover's forehead.
She
held him close and tightly closed her eyes as the ship hit the
ground.
A
wave of pain then darkness.
*
Her
eyes opened to darkness. Panicked, she picked herself up from a rocky
floor and looked around, breathing heavily. She reached into her
pocket, took out a small flash-light and shone it round. She was in a
cave, Ilisa realised. The walls were brown and rough, the same as the
floor and ceiling. The ship was nowhere to be found. She checked the
ground, and she soon found what she was looking for; Strom was lying
on the floor, looking broken in every way. A bead of sweat went down
Ilisa's face; while she was glad to be alive, she was terrified. She
swallowed her fear. “Who's there?” she called.
The voice that answered sounded more like a bunch of carefully times
clicks rather than a real voice. “You woke us. We helped you. We
can help your friend.”
Ilisa's brow furrowed. “You can help Strom? How?”
“The same way we survived.” Ilisa could hear the voice drawing
closer now. She swung the torch around and recoiled in shock at what
she saw. It was humanoid, but its limbs were too long and its body
too small. Its head was even more bizarre, with a round,
entirely-circular mouth and only one large eye in the centre of their
forehead, with flaps of skin covering where their eyes should be.
Their skin was jet black, but not naturally so; the skin itself
looked deformed and pockmarked. “The back-up project was to be our
legacy, and it will help your friend. Give him a new body, with his
old mind. A clone, if you will.”
“But he'll still be...him?” Ilisa asked.
“Exactly the same.”
“What are you?”
“My name is Ha'kuun. And for centuries we have been forgotten. But
never gone. I am one of the last Orbans, and the Adjeti's back-up
project saved our race.”
