Page 74 of May the Stars Have Mercy
Aphrodite hoped beyond hope that she wasn’t repeating her past mistakes.
Ittookanagonizingtwo weeks in the tiny ship and one stop at the last station before they passed the last planet in the stars. Aphrodite thought she would lose her marbles. The other Vroz seemed to be able to hunker down and keep from fidgeting in their tin can of a hunting vessel. So, instead, she spent her time reading to Xexis. They’d given up trying to sleep in separate bunks and instead used the empty shelving for storage and combined their mattresses into the lab. Aphrodite spent the two weeks curled up with him, reading every book she had in her storage. When they ran out of books to read, they ended up telling their own.
She told him the story of her first invention; a tin can robot her brothers helped her fashion with bumpy wheels and a wobbly head. It was able to raise and lower its clawed arms, that was it. But she’d been so proud of that silly hunk of junk that she brought it to school. It didn’t survive the day because she kept showing off her robot to anyone who would look.
Xexis’ eyes sparkled at the story as she talked through crying at home that the robot died. Her father explained that machines work and then they stop working, and a good technician could repair it. Make it better. So, she spent days fixing the bumpy wheels and wobbly head. The next week she came into school with the upgraded robot and everyone was impressed that it could moveandraise its arms up and down at will.
“My mate is brilliant, even as a youngling.” Xexis nuzzled her head.
“What about you? What was your big, I know I want to be a hunter for the rest of my life story?” she teased, kissing the ridge on his forehead.
“I was always meant to be Kannatch, so the hunt was my purpose…” he trailed off with a long, drawn-out sigh.
“But?” she giggled.
“But, there was this…what would be a stag to you, but not a friend. A male deer.”
Aphrodite rolled her eyes, settling in for his story. Xexis beamed as he flopped onto his back, laying her across his chest. “The beast was enormous, as tall as a boulder, thick shoulders, massive antlers. We were on a planet for a hunt and I was supposed to stay by the ship while my teacher scanned the area. But I saw the beast, standing a few yards off, staring at me. It was challenging me. So, I snuck out into the trees and wrestled it for ages. It wasn’t until its body gave in and I had it in a head lock that I realized it’d tired itself out. It would charge at me like nothing else I’ve seen, roaring and leveling its antlers with me. But I bested it. And when it bowed its head, lying on the soil of the forest, I knew I’d won. I believe it expected me to kill it, but I left my opponent there on the ground, having won the battle.
“My teacher stood in the clearing, watching me, ready to step in if I faltered but I did not. So, they patted me on the head and said I did well. But my opponent did not agree. Instead, it rose to its hooves and charged one last time. My teacher knocked me out of the way just in time to get an antler to the chest. They were tossed across the forest. I knew the beast, despite having been beaten honorably, was not there to be bested and left. It had too much pride. I cut it down before it could charge again and rushed to my teacher. I untangled them from the brush and rushed them to the ship. The adrenaline from getting them home so the technicians could heal them... I knew then that, yes, I enjoy the hunt, but helping people? It calls to me like a song in my chest. I feel for pain and want nothing more than to ease it.”
Aphrodite nuzzled her face deep into his chest, burrowing herself into him as much as she could. He held her there as they lay in silence.
And after those two weeks of reading, talking about their childhoods, and blatantly ignoring the storm cloud over their heads, the ship slowed down. The whole crew crept to the Command Deck. Out through the windshield as they came out of hyperspace, came the ominous dark. Like a large building inching closer and closer, blocking out the sun, the void appeared as an impenetrable wall. Aphrodite feared it was a flat surface, that they’d run straight into it. The stars began to fade away, the light before them dying. And then…ever so slowly, they breeched the void.
The ship rumbled lightly with turbulence but there was nothing to be seen. Only the light inside the ship, there was nothing before them. As they clicked on the forward lights, inches in front of the crystal panes, the light was snuffed out like a thick smog. They crept forward, following the map Buddy made for them.
It was an eternity until they slowed to a stop. The smog lifted and they were in blank, empty space. No light, no life; just an empty void.
Their scanners lit up the abandoned moon before them, but they couldn’t see it without putting the ship in risk of crashing into it. Kern turned the ship around, leaving the nose angled into the angry smog and the loading bay facing the moon they couldn’t even see.
Everyone pulled on their armor. Unlike before, there was no merriment. There was no giggling or shoving each other as everyone prepared. It was silent and haunting. Even when Buddy engaged her armor, only the soft click of all the pieces coming together could be heard. Her heart slowed to a sluggish thump after thump as she watched Xexis pull on his helmet. Everyone crept to the loading bay. The researchers, Kern, and Rexna with their blasters set to light impaction, Aphrodite at the door. Herpack, her hunters, all synced up with the cannons and squared their shoulders.
As she read off the countdown till the doors hissed open, everything was a blur…until she hit zero.
The doors wrenched open, all encompassing light going off as the pack was rocketed out of the loading bay. She clamped the doors shut the second the light began to fade. Instantly, the researchers and Rexna scanned the room, blasting anything that even remotely resembled a shadow just in case.
The only thing Xexis didn’t know…and that Aphrodite realized a moment too late…was that Buddy was no longer in the ship.
She lurched left and right, looking for him. Her gaze running every line, every space, every crevasse in the loading bay. Until the familiar clicking of text typing across her data pad filled her ears. Aphrodite glanced down and found a message for her.
Buddy will keep the pack safe for Aphrodite Kerso. We are from here, so the void cannot hurt us.
Tears welled in her eyes. Slamming her fingers against the keyboard, she responded:Stay safe.
Aphrodite paced in the loading back, opening up Buddy’s live footage. Surprisingly, his scanner vision helped her see everything. The pack found the moon, setting on either side of the moon. Buddy watched a few feet back, analyzing the moon. Then, steadily, as if they uncovered themselves from behind a curtain, she saw them. Under Buddy’s scans, the moon lit up with tiny craters and tunnels. Every inch of it was throbbing with undulating goop. The Brexzkit clogged up every artery of the moon and clung to its walls.
She gasped into the comms. “The whole moon is full of them, Xexis.”
All she got back was static.
Aphrodite was alone once more. She’d never been more afraid.
Chapter Forty-Two:
Xexis
“There…Xe….Moon.”Aphrodite’scrackledvoice died like a gasp for air in the comms. Xexis steadied the cannon alongside Reevar at the back end of the moon. They spared a look. Not using regular vision, but their scanners. The inky black couldn’t be broken by any source of light it seemed. They switched to infrared and movement scans, and the whole area was a light red with lines of green and yellow. He could see the surface of the moon and Reevar’s outline, but everything else was dark.
