Page 28 of Alien Peacock

“They can’t see us,” the archmagus says, following my gaze. “Or hear us or detect us in any way. In the strictest sense, we are not really here. Or rather, we're not really herenow.”

We follow the orange alien as he walks right past the waiting goons and continues down the hallway. We turn a corner and continue, and I let out my breath. This feels weird — I can’t hear any sound or sense any smell except Arelion and myself. It feels like we’re inside a bubble that drifts along with us through the corridors.

We pass more aliens going about their business, and we walk straight through the main commercial hall without anyone giving us a second glance. But now it’s dead silent, although I can see that it’s just as busy as ever. It’s as if someone muted the volume of the places we pass through, and it’s pretty unsettling.

The hangar is very tightly guarded, but again we just walk past the crowd of armed aliens. At one point I’m sure I’m walking straight through one of them, but he doesn’t react at all. Yep, this is starting to make my skin crawl.

We walk past several spaceships, berthed by the walkway.

My ears pop as the sound is suddenly back again. Now everything sounds far too loud, from the struggling ventilation system and the constantly creaking and pinging material of the station, to the metallic clanks from the walkway and the alien shouts and conversations from all over the place. The sudden influx of smells nearly makes me retch.

I put a hand to my nose, trying to breathe through the sleeve of my jumpsuit. “Where are we going?”

Arelion gives me a glance, his face also tight from the sudden cacophony and stench we normally wouldn't notice. “Just getting this far is more than we could expect. We will make it work.”

The tall alien stops and turns with a flourish of his robes. “This is as far as I can be bothered to take you. You are back to the right here, right now. Arelion, I understand you want my approval. If you were to travel to Sprenk and help those who toil there, I would find it much harder to hold back that approval.”

“Sprenk?” Arelion asks, frowning. “What is that?”

“Perhaps you should find out,” the archmagus says. “It should be easy to find. Maeve, whatever happens to you, I can only offer my sympathies.”

I draw breath to ask him what exactly he means by that ominous statement, but he's not there anymore. “That's weird.”

“'Weird' doesn't begin to cover it,” Arelion growls. “I was hoping he was less so. Come along.” He takes my hand and leads me fast along the walkway, passing spaceships that are getting smaller and smaller and less and less well kept. I can only assume these are the cheap docking berths, far from the entrance into the station.

Arelion studies the various spaceships we pass. Some of them he gives a closer look, but they don’t seem to fit his requirements.

I don’t know much about these ships, but the Resistance assured me it wouldn’t be important. They told me how to fly a simple one, but apparently all alien species develop different types of controls, and I’ll be lucky to find one that’s made by humanoids or has some kind of universal control system.

Arelion turns and looks back the way we came. “It’s getting urgent to find a ship.”

A group of aliens is walking out towards us. They don’t seem to be in a hurry, so there’s a chance they aren’t going to behostile. On the other hand, I’m sure our descriptions have been circulated on the station, so they may report having seen us.

We don’t have a lot of options. The metal walkway continues for another hundred yards, but then it stops in mid-space and there’s nowhere to go but back. There’s eight ships left to choose from.

“The problem is getting into one,” I sum up my knowledge about these things. “Nobody leaves their ship unlocked.”

Arelion stops briefly to look at another ship, then walks on. “And we don’t have a furry robot, the way you did when you broke into my ship.”

“Bari could have been useful now,” I agree. “But none of these ships look as nice as yours did. It was the best looking ship we could see.”

“It’s a simple military gunship,” he says and looks longingly over at the other end of the hangar, which is where it must be. “But I had some affection for it.”

I have a sudden idea. “Arelion, you have wings. Can’t you just fly over there and get it?”

“There are two reasons why I won’t try that,” he sighs. “First, because those who want to capture us will have placed guards around and inside my ship. And second, because wings need air to work. And while itlookslike there’s only air between us and other parts of the hangar, the air only extends to the walkways, held in place by simple force fields. And so this hangar is mostly vacuum.”

“Oh.” I can’t help feeling a little silly.

We reach the end of the walkway. Arelion looks at the last ship, snorts, and spins on his heel. “Let’s try that one.” He points to the spaceship three berths down. “If it’s unlocked, it might be good enough.”

“Are we that picky right now?” I ask. “Seems like any ship would be good enough if it gets us off this station.”

He runs his hand across the front of a ship, showing me how dusty it is. “Any ship that actuallyworks. These have been abandoned by their owners for some reason, almost certainly because they have something badly wrong with them. That one doesn’t look too dirty, so it hasn’t been here long and may be still in working order.”

The group of aliens we spotted have reached their own ship and are standing outside it chatting, clearly preparing to enter. Except one of them, who’s walking fast back where they come from.

“I think he might be on his way to rat us out,” I say tightly.

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