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  Her heart pounded deep with exhaustion as she landed in the far wall’s extinct lava tube. Dried lava layered the ground and walls. She was relieved to fold her wings behind her, bracing them over Bayne. She checked him for wounds from the lava and was thankful to find none.

  Julieth looked at the others still crossing the trail. They moved, bodies hunched, toward her. It would be some time before they would reach her. She stared at the massive core, pulsing and shimmering like a mirage. She had thought of the core, of the Earth Mother, as a warm and caring thing before. Now she only felt its horrible pull. But you sustain us. Without you there is no life… no planet.

  Then she heard the noises. She turned to the pitch dark of the lava tube. An eerie wail sawed above the noise of the crackling planet core. “What?” She moved toward it, into the dark of the cavern. With each step she heard the noises increase. She debated leaving Bayne on the ground and proceeding without him but realized she couldn’t take the chance something would happen to him.

  Julieth extended a hand, running it on the course stone as she moved. She drew the gun Riad had given her and flicked on its light.

  The cavern narrowed before her. She crouched as she walked.

  The ground rumbled and she stopped until it ceased. “What am I doing? I should turn back… wait for the others.”

  The sounds came louder, like a wailing, dying bird. They echoed around her, disturbing her mind, as if they were a figment of her imagination and were an actual part of her.

  She couldn’t help it.

  Something made her go forward.

  She felt a connection to the noises… a union between the essences bonded to her flesh and the sounds. The noises come from the other essences, the ones coming to attack the Earth Mother, she realized.

  As she walked, the walls narrowed. It was a steep climb up the tube. Her ankles ached from the uneven ground. Heat swarmed around her, a sauna that dried out her flesh and wings. Her skin began to chap in the heat.

  With a sharp rise upward the tunnel ended completely. Julieth reached out, touching the dried lava crust blocking her path. It was cool, unlike the warmth of the lava-tube wall before. Filaments of the dried lava fell away like ash as she touched the surface. They swarmed over her, creating a dense fog of decomposition. A little further, she thought, a little further still. She dug at it, blinded by the smoke but intent on moving forward. She clawed away scoops of sediment, marveling at how easily it was removed, and then her hands felt nothing.

  A hole…

  She clasped the edges of the hole and pulled away its sides, breaking pieces into the tunnel around her as the sediment swirled over her eyes. Her eyes burned with irritation. There was light through the hole. I need to see.

  Julieth extended her arms, clasping them to the solid outer rim of the hole she’d created, and pulled herself up past the sediment fog.

  Nothing could have prepared her.

  A massive cavern rose in a V shape upward all the way to daylight… to the world’s two suns. It was intense, vaster than imaginable. Dozens upon dozens of rock strata lined the half-planet length fissure walls. Boulders the size of mountains rested along its edges. Everywhere, brilliant multicolored light swarmed. The essences! A horrible cold ran through her. They are ripping the planet in half in search of the Earth Mother and I have opened a path for them.

  A bombardment of color flooded over her. She felt them move through her, completely uninterested in her but connecting with the essences in her body. An almost blinding kaleidoscope flashed before her, its tendrils rippling over her as it passed. Julieth looked downward the way she’d come. I have to go to the others! I have just doomed us all! She released her hands and dropped down, crouching low and filled with fear.

  She ran after them, unsure of what to do. She clasped the gun tight, thrashing her shoulder into the cavern wall and breaking flesh as she moved. Blood dripped behind her from the scrape. Multi-colored light swirled around her. She could hear the essences’ voices, as if distant, in her mind. Instinctively Julieth leveled her weapon at one of them and fired.

  THOOM!

  The far wall exploded, rock splintering and gas and smoke bursting from the impact. The essence she fired at flew on and was undamaged.

  THOOM! THOOM! Julieth fired again and again. Then she stopped in the passage, still and silent. Her chest rose and fell with near exhaustion. I have come all this way and am so naive. How could I ever think we could stop them? They are indestructible. They are beings of the ether that cannot be touched. She looked at the far wall, tempted to sit and never get up. What is the use? What is the purpose?

  THOOM! There was a weapon blast far down the tunnel, closer to the core.

  Riad! The sound of the blast drew her back into herself… resetting what they needed to accomplish in her mind, vanquishing the essences from Solaris. Something has to be done. Something has to work. She ran hard toward the sound of Riad’s gun firing over and over again.

  THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!

  Rock exploded in front of her as she turned a curve. Riad’s red cybernetic eye met her vision for a split second before he turned from her and fired at another essence close by. THOOM! The beast army, mostly in human form, huddled on the ground. Ineal lay prostrate, his light flickering. He looked ill.

  “No!” Julieth shouted at Riad. “Stop! You are not harming them! We are nothing to them! You are tearing apart the cavern!”

  THOOM! He fired again, either unhearing or uncaring of her plea.

  Julieth extended her wings and flew to him, hovering to his side. “Riad, this is pointless!”

  THOOM!

  “Riad!”

  THOOM! Riad shot at an essence above them. Rock exploded, raining down on them from above.

  “RIAD! ARE YOU MAD?” He ignored her. Arrogant man! He’s more pain than he’s worth! She smacked his shoulder with the butt of her gun. “STOP!”

  Riad turned on her, aiming his weapon square at her skull. “Do not hit me!” Vibrant electric charge moved up the gun’s electronics.

  Julieth leveled her own gun at him. “This is how you want everything to end? We could take a moment and discover a real way to defeat them! This is the death you desire? If you kill me then the others will turn on you!”

  His eyes burned with rage.

  The spindly droid, KR4, crept out of Riad’s garments, perching on his shoulder. “ksst… Transmission 6. Transmission 6. This is Exodus 12 transmitting to Riad. Are you there, Riad? Repeat, are you… ksst… Cross. Responding to your distress signal. Do you read? Do you read? Transmission 7. Transmission 7. This is Exodus 12 transmitting to Riad. Are you…” The distress call kept repeating.

  Riad’s face went from rage to something completely different. He seemed stunned.

  “Who is that speaking?” Julieth asked.

  Riad slowly laid his weapon on the ground. He held his hand up to KR4, allowing it to perch on his palm before he held it in front of his face.

  The beasts slowly stood up around them.

  “Riad responding. Verification code 99D9035768. What took you so long to extract?” Sweat dripped down his forehead.

  “Signal only now received. How are you still alive? We lost you before I was born… before my grandparents were born.” The speaker seemed to catch himself then and went back to professionalism. “This is Captain Cross of the ship Exodus 12. Exodus 1 was commissioned shortly after your disappearance. We also detect your location near Solaris’ core. There is a massive wedge of the planet completely gone. What is happening down there? It is a miracle that the planet is still in orbit.”

  Riad picked up his weapon and sheathed it. “Far too much to say over a com. We need backup down here and a plan. Are you a fully functional war ship?”

  “Negative, Sergeant. Exodus retrieves and constructs. We are large and have some weapons but Exodus is not battle ready.”

  “I need extraction of…” Riad eyed Julieth, Bayne, Ineal and Ivanus. “…five mortals and one droid in
my immediate vicinity. I’ll mark them. We can return after regrouping. Something needs finished down here.” Riad raised his gun and leveled it at Ivanus, blasting him in the chest with exploding color. He then shot Ineal, Julieth and Bayne as well.

  “Wait!” Juleth shouted. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

  Riad ignored her. “Extraction specimens tagged.” A vivid orange light scanned Riad’s eyes from KR4.

  “Retina confirmed.” Cross’ voice was swift. “Extraction in 5,4,3,2,…”

  The world melted away around Julieth. It disappeared in a fading white mirage. All was white. Static sparked over her skin.

  Chapter 6

  White.

  Silence.

  Electricity needling everywhere.

  The world came to focus in a flash. Julieth’s heart raced, burning with fear. Rectangles of otherworldly vision moved on the walls around her. Strange men and women in clothes she had never seen stood staring at her. Lights flashed all around in metal structures. She stepped back, suddenly realizing that her friends were with her, even Riad, if she could call him that. Where am I? We need to be in the core! Her heart raced faster, as if it were attacking her.

  “Riad!” one of the men spoke as he approached. “It truly is you. How have you survived so long? How can that be possible? Your friends seem stunned with fear. Perhaps you should have left them on Solaris.”

  Riad stepped forward. “Something kept me alive. Would you believe it was the spirit of a dead planet?” Silence. “Suffice it to say I live. And my companions are lower, non-matured, life forms. They are suffering from shock of our technology, no doubt.”

  Julieth’s gut suddenly pulled tight. She steadied her mind. “Lower life forms?” Her voice rang out in rage. She spread her wings and approached quickly. “We are not lower life forms! If anything you are a lower life form with your insensitivity!”

  Riad grinned. His face was cracked and bleeding because of the planet core’s heat they had baked in. “I saved your tail, didn’t I? I could have left you down there to die!”

  “You pompous…!”

  Riad turned to the man and extended a hand. “I am Riad.”

  “Captain Cross, Paul Cross.” They shook hands.

  Riad pointed to Ineal, who lay limp on the ground close by. “He needs the med bay. We can speak more there.”

  When Julieth looked to Ineal she was speechless. His body was completely skin tone. There was no illumination. She remembered his light flickering, as if going out, by the core. “Get him a doctor!” she shouted. “Please! Now!”

  Cross tapped a sensor in his arm. “Jenkins, Casm, to the bridge stat. We have a wounded man extracted from Solaris needing attention.”

  “Sir, yes, Sir,” a response came.

  Soon a wall nearby disintegrated and two men in medic gear rushed in with a hovering metallic board. They took Ineal by his shoulders and legs and hefted him onto it. The board vibrated for a moment and then steadied itself.

  “Follow them,” Cross instructed. “I will follow shortly. I want to observe the planet for a moment first.”

  Julieth looked to one of the illuminated rectangle pictures on the far wall. She walked toward it. In it was the image of a massive planet, red and pocked with structures. A large wedge of the planet was missing. Down deep in the crevice was a bleeding, eerie orange glow. Earth Mother. She reached out a hand, touching the illuminated screen. It was cold and rippled when she touched it. We will return to save you.

  “Are you coming or do you insist on letting the planet die instead of making a plan to save it and your friend?” Riad’s voice was harsh.

  Julieth watched the orb. “You could have a heart. You do such good for others, and yet you are so dark inside.”

  “Hundreds of years trapped on your planet… Perhaps I’ll have a heart now that I’m off of that rock. Get moving.”

  Julieth turned, looking to Ivanus, who had been silent thus far since arriving. He winked at her. “Perhaps it’s Riad’s lovely disposition that caused our planet to rot.”

  Riad grunted.

  “If you three are done…” Cross motioned his hand toward the open hallway that the medics and Ineal’s hovering stretcher had already begun moving down.

  As they walked down the long corridor Julieth looked out the windows that lined it into the void of space. She was in awe. She had never seen something so dark and vast. “It must have been amazing to live on one of these ships,” she spoke to Riad.

  He ignored her.

  A high ranking woman who was leading them looked over to Julieth. “It is amazing. I miss our home planet. We get to return so rarely. It is beautiful out here though and we help many species of people in our journeys.”

  As the woman finished speaking a man with purple skin and bumps on his head passed them, walking in the opposite direction. It took her aback, but truthfully nothing surprised her anymore. “I am Julieth. It is a pleasure to meet you,” she spoke to the woman leading them.

  “I am Reagan.” The woman smiled.

  The rest of their walk the company was silent. Outside the ship’s windows Julieth saw the two suns she had grown up watching daily, sometimes being thankful for their warmth and sometimes cursing them for their murderous heat. She also saw a distant galaxy, its shimmering light and pink hues a beautiful cloud in the distance. It gave off a tranquil aura. Beautiful.

  Whoosh! The med-bay door disintegrated as Ineal’s hover-bed passed through it. They entered the room and Julieth looked in wonder at its vastness. Gadgets lined the walls and even the ceiling. Lights shimmered and flashed as screens blipped and moved near another patient along the far wall of the room. As the medics began examining Ineal, Julieth suddenly remembered Bayne on her back. “Do you have a spare bed?” she asked. “The boy that I carry is unconscious and wounded as well.”

  “Certainly.” Reagan tapped a light on the wall and a hover-bed appeared out of thin air near Julieth. Julieth took Bayne and laid him gently on the bed. She looked at his closed eyes. You will be safe here. Maybe they can find a way to heal you, to help you wake. “I love you,” she spoke softly. She kissed his forehead.

  Ivanus placed a hand on her shoulder. His touch made her heartbeat calm.

  “What happened to them?” Reagan asked Julieth, bypassing Riad completely.

  “This boy, Bayne, is in a coma I believe. He has been this way for weeks, since a symbiotic being disconnected with his body and another type of blood was infused within his own. I must sound absurd. I love him dearly, like a son.”

  Reagan watched Bayne. “I have seen many things on this ship. Nothing surprises me. If you say that’s what happened then I believe you.” She motioned for a man across the room. “Come look at this boy. Scan his blood for foreign antibodies or breaching.” She turned back to Julieth. “And what about the man?”

  Julieth walked to Ineal, placing a hand on his forehead. She had never touched his skin and did not know what she expected now that his body was normal flesh instead of brilliant light. He was warm, like any other unconscious body. “I do not know… he was like a god before.”

  “Not a god,” Ivanus interjected, “a man who shone with brilliant light and who had abilities.”

  Julieth watched Ineal’s closed eyelids. He looked peaceful. “Since the light went out he has been like this. It is only just recent, since just before your people brought us to the ship.”

  Reagan motioned across the room for two other medics to come to Ineal.

  Julieth watched Ineal closely. It was still odd to see him without the brilliant light that shone from him before. His eyelids shivered and his forehead flinched, as if he were having a nightmare. Then his mouth and eyes opened at the same time. He coughed and hacked, gasping for breath. Julieth hugged him as he sat up, violently coughing in her arms. “You are alright,” she promised him. “These medics will take care of you.” Her heart raced. She had not expected him to awaken.

  “No. Solaris’ soul is dying.” I
neal’s voice startled Julieth and she let go of him, stepping quickly away.

  “You cannot speak.” She watched him in fear. She looked to Riad. “He is mute. He cannot speak! This is wrong!”

  “It seems like he can.” Riad grinned.

  Ineal seemed surprised as well. He touched his bare chest with his hands, feeling each groove of his shoulders and face. “The Earth Mother has released me from her control because she is dying. I could not speak to you before because my own mortal form was gone. She has restored that for me now, restored my body, but I am now like any other man of flesh and bone.”

  Julieth cautiously stepped toward him. “Do you retain all of your memories of your time with us?”

  “Yes.” Ineal’s body had begun to sweat. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  “Without you we very well may not be alive. Thank you.”

  Reagan motioned her medics to go away from Ineal and help look after Bayne.

  Julieth looked to Riad. “Since Ineal is alright, we need to make a plan to exterminate the essences.”

  “I might be able to help with that.” Ineal’s voice again surprised her. “Before I came to you… long before… the essences destroyed my planet. They killed off all of the people there before corrupting that planet’s soul. They ripped my planet in half, as I’m sure they will Solaris.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to help,” Riad interjected. “It sounds like you were useless on your own world as well.”

  Julieth flashed Riad a halting glare.

  “No. That is alright,” Ineal responded, sitting upright in his bed. Reagan handed him a towel to cover himself. “He speaks the truth. But I do have knowledge that may help. Just before the essences destroyed my world I created weapons that could kill them.”

  “Then there is a way?” Julieth gasped.

  “I harnessed the heat equivalent to a sun. When that heat is focused on them then they are extinguished.” Ineal looked to Reagan. “Do you have a weapon forge here?”

  “We can make nothing like you are suggesting. Perhaps with time you could use the capabilities we have to create such a weapon.”