Displaced, p.37
Displaced, page 37
Both her and Tom were able to slip unnoticed into a corridor near the front door. There were no guards that way, so they traveled unhindered. Eliza led them with the memory of the rough sketch Talis had drawn for them before leaving.
Kira’s room was almost in the center of the castle, surrounded by storage rooms. It should have been easy to enter, but Eliza stopped short of entering another corridor when she saw two Skeen standing by Kira’s door. She had guessed there would be guards at the princess’s door, but she didn’t expect them to be from Lordak’s inner circle.
Garrus and Iriel looked serious, and their eyes flinty.
Eliza was sure they’d recognize her. Talis had made fake points for her ears, and her hair covered the seam where they met her ear. But she didn’t want to risk it.
“I know those Skeen,” she whispered to Tom behind her. “But I think I can disarm them.”
Tom looked at the Skeen guards and shook his head. “That won’t work. They’ll be well trained. I’ll distract them so you can go in.”
“I can control my power now. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t waste your energy. You need to get your sister and go.”
“And what will happen if they capture you? They’ll kill you!”
Tom snorted. “You’ve been a soldier for less than a month. Besides, I’ve been in worse situations. Don’t worry about me. Focus on rescuing Kira.”
Before Eliza could protest further, he removed his cloak. His suit flickered so much that it hurt Eliza’s eyes. A moment later he turned it off, letting it fade to black. He gave Eliza a nod, then ran around the corner with a knife in one hand and a climbing glove on the other. The hooks on the end of the glove would be enough to tear a person’s face open. It made her worry less for the old soldier’s safety, but not enough to settle her stomach.
Garrus stirred into action immediately and created a fulgur whip from his palm, lashing it at Tom. Tom dodged it and ran at Iriel, who deflected his attack with a large knife.
After a tense moment, Tom ran down the corridor with the two soldiers chasing after him.
Eliza’s stomach flipped, but there wouldn’t be a better chance to move. With the entrance clear, she approached cautiously. The door was wooden and carved with swirling patterns like her father’s bedroom, but unlike his it was smaller.
Her fingers touched the silver handle. She took a deep breath before turning it and walking inside the room.
Sitting on the small bed against the opposite wall was Kira. Her hair was a mess, and her clothing was disheveled. Her body jerked and her eyes focused as Eliza walked into the room.
“I already said I know nothing more about Earth. Go away.”
Her eyes found Eliza’s face. “I know you…”
Eliza smiled. “Well I hope so, I did rescue you once.”
Kira jumped to her feet. “Eliza! What happened to you?”
Eliza sat on the end of the bed. “Too much to talk about now, but I discovered that I’m one of you. I couldn’t stay on Earth after that.”
Kira gasped. “That’s not a suit?” She prodded Eliza’s arm gently with a finger, watching carefully.
“Nope.”
With a brief explanation, Eliza told her the most important parts. Once she’d gotten to the last and most personal fact, Kira’s eyes became wide. She looked at Eliza with tears in her eyes. She signed a few words.
We are sisters.
Eliza nodded and felt warmth expand inside her chest. She wanted to talk to Kira about everything that had happened, and to learn about her life, but time was already in short supply. Eliza launched into Lordak’s plan to invade Earth instead.
“And my father?”
Eliza nodded. “A friend is there now, trying to free the king. Come on, we need to swap clothes.”
They changed quickly, and Eliza made sure Kira’s hair was wrapped in the scarf.
“Keep your head low,” she said to Kira.
The girls slipped out of the door, and Eliza turned to Kira with a smirk. Eliza’s pronunciation of the words in Strutit had improved since her first trip to Vakdon, and she spoke clearly. “This is the second time I’ve had to rescue you now.”
Kira grinned. “Isn’t that what big sisters are for?”
Eliza’s smile was short-lived as the sounds of clashing steel echoed nearby.
I hope Tom is okay. He’ll have to manage a little while longer.
Eliza gestured to Kira, and they walked through the castle slowly. Eliza itched to run, but she knew it would attract too much attention. Soldiers paced the area the closer to the front doors they got, and the girls hid behind corners until they passed them. Once they reached the outside door, Eliza saw two stationed who hadn’t been there before.
There was no other way out, and Eliza and Kira looked at each other in understanding. Preparing to flee, Eliza approached the guards cautiously. The Skeen squinted at them but looked drunk as they wobbled on their feet.
Eliza clicked her tongue in polite greeting. They clicked a greeting in return and opened the door without so much as a questioning word.
Kira and Eliza walked into the cool breeze outside with the sounds of drunk Skeen at their backs.
Wow, that was easy. Lordak needs to train his soldiers better.
Ralph leaned against the palace wall and frowned when he saw them.
“Didn’t you just come in a while ago? You’re the cook, aren’t you? Where’s my steak?”
Eliza ignored him and walked away. She was surprised he wasn’t drunk too, considering how much he hated to work.
“Get back here!” He screamed and took a hold of Eliza’s shirt.
The hours spent training with Tom had instilled something in her, and a fulgur knife slid from her palm instantly. She pressed into Ralph’s neck. Ralph spluttered and twisted away from the knife. “Do you know who I am?! I’ll have your head for this,” he said, rubbing his throat.
“You’re nobody here,” Eliza said, in a language he understood. She took Kira’s hand and walked away. She heard Ralph spluttering and stammering a reply. Out of nowhere, there was the sharp snapping sound of a plasma gun.
The laser only just missed Eliza. She took Kira’s arm and ran behind a building before another could be fired.
“Can’t even shoot straight,” Eliza said with a laugh.
Kira laughed with her.
They walked along the streets and kept their heads down whenever a Skeen walked by. Most were civilian, but a few wore soldier’s uniforms and showed no sign of drunkenness like those in the castle. These soldiers were focused as they cut through the crowd. Eliza’s heart raced when one soldier’s eyes rested on her painted face, but she breathed a little easier when they moved to a Skeen behind her. Kira and Eliza passed by the soldier silently and resumed their journey.
When they got to Talis’ bright blue house, no one was there. Eliza took the key, which the Skeen scientist had hidden near his door, to get in. They waited.
“We can’t keep waiting. Lordak will invade Earth soon,” Kira said, jumping from a chair.
“We have until tomorrow. We can wait, I’m sure it’s fine.”
“No, he moved his plans up!” Kira interjected. “He’s doing it today!”
“What? How do you know?” Eliza said, panic in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“He was bragging about it when he saw me this morning. I thought you knew, that’s why you rescued me so soon. Right?”
“We have to find Tom and tell him.”
“What? We have to go back? We just escaped!”
Eliza was already out of the door by the time Rita had finished speaking.
“Wait!” Rita followed reluctantly but almost collided with Eliza’s back a few moments later.
“Something’s wrong,” Eliza said, staring at the empty street. There wasn’t a single child or adult to be seen. Even the wildlife seemed to be quiet.
“What’s going on?”
They ran to the palace, but even that was unguarded. Ralph, who had been there only an hour ago, was missing too.
Then they heard it; The cry of a hundred voices coming from far away. Eliza and Kira followed the noise through the deserted city. However, it wasn’t as deserted as Eliza had thought when she saw faces of children peeking behind windows, or heard the slamming of doors as someone ran off the street and into the safety of their home.
The voices got louder the further away they got from the city. It was only once they’d reached the outskirts and were well into the ruins when they saw hundreds of Skeen soldiers all clad in armor, walking along the rocky plains in the distance. The chasm was close by and the soldiers in the long line ahead were already crossing the narrow ledge.
“They said they’d wait until the moon reached its peak…” Kira said.
Eliza looked to the sky. It was darker than before and the light from the suns was only a faint glow. The stars could be seen clearly in the cloudless sky and the half-moon sat low.
“Lordak lied,” Eliza stated flatly. She ran after the soldiers with the intention to join the line and somehow figure out a way of stopping them, but a thought crossed her mind.
If she did manage to stop them and destroy the wormhole, then she would be cut off from Earth forever and could never deliver the life-saving seeds. Those seeds were the reason she had done what she had, after all.
“I need to do something first. Will you help me?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“I need to get enough seeds for my people. They’ll starve once the wormhole closes.”
Kira squinted at her. “You mean the humans? They aren’t your people anymore. Plus, they kidnapped me! Why should you help them? Just close the portal so there won’t be any more wars, and everyone can have peace.”
“Even if they’re not my people anymore, I can’t let them starve and fight amongst themselves.” She gave Kira a side-long glance. “Coming with me?”
“Fine, but I’m only doing it to make you feel better… I don’t care about humans. You’ve got a plan?”
“Well, I was thinking of using you as my prisoner. I could say that I’ll kill you unless they give me the seeds.”
Kira looked incredulous. “I don’t think that will work. Most of the Skeen in there are loyal to Lordak. They’ll know I’m meant to be under guard in the castle. I think we should go in there and force our way through. You must be strong to have escaped the prison, so I bet we can combine our abilities and take them down.”
Kira looked pleased with her idea, and Eliza couldn’t help but smile. “We’ll try my way first. If things go badly, we’ll do it your way.”
The two girls ran back through the ruins and into the quiet city. Eliza wasn’t worried about losing track of the army and figured that if she sprinted, she could make it back just as the soldiers were entering the wormhole.
They reached the seed storage building at last, and Eliza stared at the bolted door with her muscles tense and her fulgur skittering along her skin. “Okay, let’s hope this works.”
She pressed her palm to the silver pad on the door and allowed a sliver of purple to escape her fingers. Nothing happened for a little while, but another moment passed, and the door slid open. Eliza formed her fulgur into a knife and made to step behind Kira to prepare for their act, but the room inside was empty.
“What?” Eliza exclaimed. “Here too?”
Kira and Eliza walked inside. It was clean and sterile, much like the laboratory on Earth. The desk at the front was empty.
“Maybe they left to follow Lordak?” Kira suggested.
Eliza didn’t want to wait around long enough for someone to come back. She walked through a wide corridor behind the desk, and her mouth opened at the sight of the rows of seeds stacked in containers that reached the ceiling.
Each clear box allowed Eliza to peek inside and see seeds of every shape and size. Labels pressed to the front of the containers told her what variety they were, and she nearly cried from joy. She lifted the lid off a waist-high container and ran her fingers though the oval-shaped seeds. They slipped through her fingers.
“Quickly, gather as many as you can,” Eliza said to Kira, then realized there was nothing to put them into.
She looked everywhere but the surfaces were clean and clutter-free. Not a bag or container in sight.
“Shit,” she said to herself. She’d come so far only to be undone by a lack of storage.
Kira ripped her skirt at the thighs, leaving the once ankle-length material on the floor. She smoothed the material out began pilling seeds onto it. The princess looked at Eliza and halted. “What? It’s the only way. You can use your scarf.”
Rita unwrapped the scarf from around her head and handed it to Eliza, who took it and began filling the scarf with seeds from the containers she could reach. The other containers sitting on racks high above their heads would remain untouched. Eliza wished there was a ladder for her to climb so she could take those too, but she knew it would take days to collect every type of seed in the building. They were other corridors and rooms with hundreds more containers lining the walls, all left miraculously unattended.
There was no way for Eliza to separate the different varieties of seeds, so she mixed them together until they spilled off the edge of the scarf and slid away.
Having filled the strip from her skirt to capacity, Kira shook off her long shirt, leaving just the thin top underneath. She lay the shirt on the ground and piled seeds onto it haphazardly.
Eliza tied a knot in the scarf once she was sure no more seeds would fit inside. Seeds fell and bounced in all directions, but Eliza didn’t have the time to fetch them.
With no time to spare, the girls left the same way they came with the bundles of seeds in their arms. No one came for them.
Once outside, they ran back to the chasm. The city streets and market were empty, but a few curious Skeen looked at them from their houses.
It took some time to get back to where Eliza had last seen the soldiers, but when she did there were none remaining.
“They got through that quickly,” Kira said.
“Well, we were gone awhile.”
She looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a hint of sunlight, but the moon gave enough light to guide their way along the chasm ledge.
Once on the other side, Eliza saw a glimpse of the line of soldiers walking along the plains in the distance.
“I see them. Come on!” Eliza said, urging Kira on.
They ran over the rocky field and avoided shrubs, Twilight Nettles, and rocks as best they could. Soon, they were in the forest and slowed their pace.
Up ahead were orbs of fulgur floating beside every soldier, illuminating the forest floor and trees around them. Eliza knew she couldn’t risk creating her own. Despite Tom’s training, there were moments her control slipped. It would only be for a moment, but she knew it would attract the Skeen’s attention.
So, Eliza kept close to the back of the line and used the faint light to stop herself from tripping on tree roots. Kira struggled too, but she created a small orb for herself.
For the second time since her transformation, Eliza appreciated her Skeen eyesight. She knew the forest would be impossible for her to travel through at night if she were human.
Minutes later, the sounds of Skeen talking grew louder. Suddenly, the path opened into a clearing, and Eliza nearly bumped into the Skeen soldier stopped in front of her. Her gasp made the Skeen turn.
Eliza froze at being seen, but the female only turned back around and talked to the soldier next to her.
“Not long now,” the Skeen said.
A gentle wind blew through the clearing, wafting the sweet smell of plumberries from nearby bushes to Eliza’s nose. The scent did little to ease Eliza’s anxiety.
Kira touched Eliza’s arm gently. “There are so many of them.”
Eliza could only nod in reply. The clearing was crammed with soldiers packed tightly together, their faces glowing from the orbs floating above them. Weapons of every kind sat in their hands or in holsters.
In front of the soldiers was an enormous cave. Eliza knew exactly where she was, and her heart hammered loudly. It front of the cave, suspended above the entrance, was a shimmering platform made of fulgur. On top of it was Lordak.
Eliza could see his face from the purple light emanating from the platform, but it was his booming voice in the middle of a speech that made her clench her fist with hatred.
“This is the start of a new era. There will be no more humans taking what is ours. Now we fight back!”
The hundreds of soldiers roared and raised their weapons to the sky.
Eliza’s anger made light flicker and zap from her fingertips, almost touching the female Skeen in front of her.
Kira eyed the light warily. “I don’t think I’ve seen one so bright before.” She looked worriedly at Eliza. “Are you sure you have control of it?” The princess had to yell to be heard over the cries of the soldiers.
“Sometimes I feel it pushing at me from the inside, and I keep thinking that it’ll burst from me at any moment. But I keep it in as best as I can.”
Kira appeared even more worried.
Lordak lowered himself onto the ground by releasing the fulgur hooks keeping the platform attached to the rocks, then he disappeared into the mouth of the cave. His soldiers slipped through after him.
Eliza was deliberating on how to get into the cave before the other soldiers could, when the sounds of surprise rang out from inside the cave.
Suddenly, the Skeen soldiers backed out the cave and readied themselves with fulgur weapons. The next moment, a stream of human soldiers came through the cave entrance, weapons raised. The combined fulgur light orbs allowed Eliza to see Monica as one of the first out. She looked fierce. Close behind was Jacob, looking uncertain.
Eliza searched for Rita, but it took a long time for all the soldiers to exit the cave and allow the medics to come through. She scanned what seemed like a hundred faces before seeing Rita at the rear, carrying a medic pack.
Eliza couldn’t believe the number of human soldiers that had come through. There weren’t as many as Lordak’s army, but it would be enough to defend the portal for some time.
