CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next day, bright and early after some brief exercise with Lezura, she and Joey were escorted by officer Coenter to the mayor’s office. Most of the city had yet to recover from the slamming of last night’s celebration, but a few people, like the inn keeper, were busy cleaning up inside and around the premises. The rest were geckoids and lazhinians.
They had yet to find Redbolt, though the officers promised to look for him, and so they took one of the police vehicles to the mayor’s office. It was a single story dome, dark brown colored at the top with a tan base. The compound surrounding it was granite and cobblestone surrounded by a fence, with just two visible vehicles.
Joey and Lezura got out.
“See you later,” Coenter said beside the driver.
“You are not coming with us?” Lezura said.
“Have to home and take a nap,” Coenter said. “Don’t worry. It’s not some trap to steal the key from you. Just go right in and the mayor will be there.”
The police vehicle went off down the road.
The morning air was chilly, tuning each of their breaths to mist. They city was still dark and few street lamps on the sidewalk and on the compound were lit.
Lezura felt her ears going numb, and she flexed them and dropped on her headphones. She wrapped her ponytail around her neck like a scarf and marched onto the compound with Joey. It made sense now; the compound looked simple enough that anyone would try to attack the mayor thinking it would be as easy as provoking a gufder to bite you, but at least a dozen armed security personnel were on patrol around the compound.
Thanks to their status, Joey and Lezura were being expected and were let through without question.
They entered the building, and were guided through the various corridors by a largaph woman with bright orange brown skin that just whacked Joey in the eyes.
Another thing about her was that unlike Tylin, or even other male largaphs, the ornate spikes that were usually found at the back of their heads crept around to the side of her head like a crown, but the ornate set of groves at the back of the head and neck as with all largaphs was still there.
“She looks different than the other largaphs,” Joey whispered to Lezura.
“She is an Ywenti largaph,” said Lezura. “They are a breed of largaph that evolved on one of the habitable moons around the gas planet Big-Gassy at the start of the first Solar War.”
“Yeah…” Joey said, admiring the woman. Will all these new things popping up, Joey decided that he would have at least read up on the solar systems history to keep up to date with the history around here.
Most of the rooms Joey and Lezura pass had few people, and those there were just working around some old computers organizing data.
They were brought to a metallic door with a few bits of rust. Their escort placed her hand on a palm reader at the side of the door and it slid into the wall with a whoosh.
“Oooo!” Joey said. “Slidy door!”
“Please try not to make a scene when we go inside,” said.
The woman stepped away and said with a gesture, and said curtly, “You may enter.”
“Thank you,” Lezura said as she went into the room with Joey waltzing behind her.
Mayor Cassim was seated behind a wooden table with the texture of birch wood, occupied by a cup of tea, a wrapping of some basurel meat sandwich and a small computer. Behind him the window glowed with a touch of light from the street lamps outside. There were pictures of past mayors on the wall, along with that of the landscape of another planet, by the vast jungles Lezura thought it was from the lazhinian homeworld of Gammuo.
Lezura focused her attention on the little figure of mayor Cassim. His face wore a worried look that further augmented his already withered features.
He gave them a smile, but it seemed to be forced rather than actual delight. “Good morning, children,” he said.
“Good morning,” Lezura said.
“Wazz’up, Yoda?” Joey said.
Lezura frowned and bit on her lip to suppress a scream, giving Joey a murderous sideways glance.
Mayor Cassim repeated the word “Yoda”, that he heard in his translator, silently to himself, looking perplex. He quietly shrugged it away and said, “I hope I didn’t ask of you to see me out of your precious time.”
“Not at all,” Lezura said—she pointed to Joey warningly as he opened his mouth. He didn’t bother to make a sound.
A genuine chuckle escaped Cassim’s throat. “Please, sit.”
Lezura and Joey sat before Cassim and made themselves comfortable, which in Joey’s case was stretching in the chair.
Mayor Cassim said, “I thank you for your services in helping our city beat the orderrans. Our officers would have been practically annihilated had it not been for your wit and those remarkable civilians with the alchemist. I’m ashamed to say, we even had to ask the hand of criminals for help as well.”
“The main point is that the city is safe for the time being,” said Lezura.
“Time being, you say?” said Cassim, “So I guess you too have realized that the orderrans will be coming back.”
“Well of course,” Lezura said, a bit shocked that the mayor thought no one would, “the orderrans will not take such a defeat lightly. We were lucking they did not bring a real fleet with them. Had they done so they would have reduced this place to rubble within minutes!”
“So what do you think our best option for the safety of these people is?” said Cassim, “because what I and the commissioner were proposing was evacuation.”
“That is the only option,” said Lezura, adding some grimness in her tone to further cement it. “What we should be asking is the means by which to do so?”
“What about the train?” Joey said. “That train’s big enough to hold a lot a people based on what I saw…” then added quickly, “I didn’t rob it! The gangbanger lady made me do it!”
“Old Chippy…?” Cassim rubbed his hand thoughtfully, “Hmmm…that could work?”
Lezura said, “Are you sure it could, Mr. Mayor?”
The made nodded. “I believe so,” he said, “but I will have to notify them first and ask for their approval. The Ugatin government has been willing to help us with supplies, but I am having doubts they well willingly take us into their country. If they do, though, it will take two days for the train to reach here.”
“How many people are in the city?” Lezura said.
“Six hundred thirty,” said Cassim, “counting the loss of the few civilians.”
“It will take about two trips to evacuate that much people,” Lezura said, “and that is with the train lessoning some of its supplies. That means a total of eight days to get everyone out of the city. And anywhere between that timeframe the orderrans can come and demolish the place.”
Cassim rubbed his forehead with a deep sigh. “I wonder how are we going to move all these people at the same time…?”
“I wonder…” Lezura said as she still pondered it “…could we not try to have them leave at the same time?” When Cassim looked at her with his bush grey brows lowered, she added; “the women and children can take the train, assuming there will be soldiers onboard to provide protection. And the men and the security forces can travel on foot.”
“That is a very risky thing to do,” said the mayor. “The orderrans could come and catch up those people on foot.”
“Well maybe they’ll be some kind of distraction while the others get away,” said Joey, “I think…”
After a moment, Cassim said, “It is the only option we have, so I will discuss it further with the commissioner again and get in his input on it.” Cassim rose to his feet, with Joey and Lezura following short. “Thank you so much for your time. If the commissioner and I come to a mutual agreement, we will notify the city by the middle of the day.”
Joey and Lezura said their goodbyes and left.
They were thinking Coenter was joking, but outside the premises they didn’t see the police car.
“What a little—” Joey held his tongue, and followed Lezura on foot back to the inn.
By the time they reached back the sunlight was beginning to strengthen through the many holes in the dome, and with it came the fresh scent of the world outside. More people had taken to the streets and were getting things back into routine.
At the inn they saw Tylin waiting on them, with Redbolt. Laughing, Joey ran towards her and gave the animal a huge around its wide chest. “Redbolt, you’re back!”
“S’us told me that you lost him around the market area,” said Tylin. “I figured he would be stuck there eating whatever the people left behind.”
“S’us’ fine?” said Joey.
“She’s conscious,” said Tylin, “but the doctors say she still needs a few more days rest.”
Joey breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good morning, Tylin,” said Lezura. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for my class with my pupil,” Tylin said. She turned to Joey who as now looking at her with shock, and grinned. “Come on, boy, we’ve got work to do. S’us said you almost got killed by one measly orderran!”
Joey frowned. “’One measly orderran?’” Joey said. “The guy was a frigging werewolf—”
“Lycan,” said Lezura, rolling her eyes and her ears.
“DOG-MAN!” Joey said. “I cut him in the gut and it didn’t even make him flinch!”
“That wasn’t a true Lycan,” said Tylin.
“How the hell do you know?” Joey said.
“Because are all three of you are still alive,” Tylin said.
“No shit…?” Joey said with a bewildered look.
Lezura saw the opportunity to share her knowledge and said, “Joey, where as humans have simian origin, orderrans have canine ancestry. A very few of them are able to tap into these genes and stimulate them to take over the body, resulting in a complete anatomical transformation into the animal.”
“So orderrans are dogs?” Joey said.
“A wolf would be the more closely relative term,” Lezura said.
“Then wait, what do nycarmans come from?” Joey said.
Lezura shrugged. “That in itself is a mystery,” she said. “We do not share much genes with the animals on this world.”
Joey turned to Tylin, caught up in the whole science stuff…thing. “What do your people evolve from, teach?”
“Racusha,” Tylin said.
“What the hell’s that?” said Joey.
Lezura leaned in close to Joey, patted Redbolt on his snout, and said, “A racusha is an armor-plated, four legged predator somewhere between a mammal and a reptile, known as a therapsid. It is one of the oldest living species on Tylin’s homeworld, said to be over 4 million years old—”
“Enough with the lecturing stuff,” Tylin said, “biology wasn’t my forte in high school.” Tylin put her arm around Joey. “Now, you and I have a date, Rakai.”
“I don’t kiss on the first date, though.”
“What high school might that be?” said Lezura.
Tylin scowled at Lezura. But the nycarman’s beaming pink eyes told Tylin Lezura wasn’t about to back down.
Tylin sighed. “It was the Sugeya Technical High School.”
Lezura gasped. “Really?” she said. “My goodness! The Sugeya Technical High School is the most prestigious all-girl…no, the most prestigious school on the continent! Not to mention it has been around for thousands of years since it was once the castle of Queen Sugeya—”
Tylin and Joey went to their training with an energized Lezura talking all the way behind them.
Later that morning, while Tylin and Joey took their practice on the roof of a pub beside the inn, Lezura watched them keenly from the top of another building, sitting at the edge of the roof without much consideration for falling off.
She could hear the mayor making his announcement to the city’s populace via a microphone attached to speakers in the back of the police vehicles. He and Commissioner Oldam had come to an agreement on taking the course of action to evacuate the city.
Recently he had radioed the President of Ugatin, who had agreed to provide them with land space in one of the cities so they could find refuge there.
There was the uproar of disapprovals to the mayor’s ridiculous scheme. Lezura could understand that. The people here were free to live how they chose, though under strict rules of the city’s police force. They were virtually a separate community from Ugatin, and could gather food resources from their surroundings outside the dome.
Leaving here and going to Ugatin would put them under the rule of another country where they had no citizenship or freedom of movement and expansion. And not because the government was willing to help them, meant that the people there were all smiles with the idea of immigrants squatting in their country.
When the Prestige System began, some countries, noticeably the powerful ones, took it as an opportunity to exile alien species out of their main cities into the minor ones they dubbed Underworlds. It wouldn’t have been bad had such people been left to themselves, Lezura realized, but with the usual harvests of the people for quite possibly diabolical means, and the lack of any kind of military help against criminals of all sorts, stopped the people from developing a solid society for themselves.
Yet, Lezura couldn’t find this realization bringing her to tears, because she was quite happy her daughter wasn’t in this kind of system. And yet there was another side of sadness to it. Her daughter wasn’t with her. She didn’t have her little girl in her arms. She couldn’t even remember her scent, though she hoped when they finally meet, her daughter would recognize her.
Will she really, Lezura? Or do you just want to tell yourself that.
Lezura decided to push those thoughts in the back of her mind for now. She had a lot ahead of her for the rest of the day.
Hours later, when Joey was finished getting pounded by Tylin and had rested up, he had honoi practice with Lezura right on the same spot on the roof. First going over the Blueburst and then getting more familiar with the Bluebolt.
At one point Joey had released such a blast it bore a hole in the wall of the inn. They quickly got off the roof before they were spotted and charged a handsome fine by the inn keeper, and took their training to the abandoned warehouse where the crime scene was already cleaned up.
They finished up that day with Joey going over his language notes and learning a few new words to add to his vocabulary.
One day, Tylin and Joey were having practice in the cave were Yeltsa once had her jeeps and equipment. But all that had been confiscated by the police and all that was left was a vast hollow where only the small, cautious creatures took residence.
Tylin and Joey were practicing hand to hand combat, moving about on their bare feet and exchanging blows. Most of which were landing on Joey.
Redbolt and Tylin’s greshku were tied at the mouth of the cave, feeding on the traces of shrubs around it.
Tylin wasn’t expecting Joey to come up to her level just like that overnight, what she expected was for Joey to grasp concepts and constantly work to improve them.
As she instructed, Joey, using his height, tried to land blows on Tylin’s lower body. Tylin blocked a blow aimed at her knee, swatter away Joey’s other fist and thrust her knee up into his chest. Joey rode on the blow and backed away, feint a move forward and kicked at Tylin’s knee.
Tylin grabbed Joey’s foot, kicked the other on from beneath him and hurled him onto his back on the stones.
Joey winced, slowly rolled onto his belly and got up. Rubbing his back, he said, “Tylin can we stop now? I think I’m getting bone cancer with just you beating me up.”
Tylin sat on the ground and steadied her breath. “What have I told you about your whining?” she said.
Joey sucked in his mouth briefly like he tasted something bitter, and said, “If I have the strength to whine I have the strength to fight. But that’s different from when you’ve actually fought and got your ass kicked. What about weapons training…?”
Tylin stared at Joey sonically. “You lost the sword I gave to you, remember…?” she said.
Joey hung his head and bit down on his smile.
“It won’t be funny when you’ve lost your sword and have your head chopped off, though,” said Tylin.
Joey looked up at her, folded his arms and scowled. “Then what the hell do I have honoi for? Not to mention my bat!”
Tylin was about to comment when she paused; an idea popped in her head. “Hey, Joey,” she said, “let me see your bat for a second.”
“’Kay…” said Joey. He got the bat from the pack on Redbolt and brought it back to Tylin. “What you want it for?”
Tylin observed the bat in her hand from the tip of the handle to the head. After a moment she looked at Joey with a playful mirthful smile and said, “Hey, Joey, how would you like to have your bat into a sword?”
As expected, Tylin saw Joey’s face reel with joy. She could have even sworn tears were in his eyes and drool dangled at the corner of his mouth.
“REALY?” Joey said, his voice echoing in the cave.
“Shhhh,” Tylin said, “not so loud. Yes, I can make it into one. I’m not an A-grade alchemist like Clastaan but he did teach me a few things about matter-molding.”
“This’s so frickin cool yo!” Joey said. “My sword’s goanna be so awesome—like a…like a samurai sword, or one of those big-ass dragon slayer swords those guys use in the rope-playing video games!”
“It’s goanna be a shortsword,” said Tylin.
Joey’s glee disappeared just like that. “Why does it have to be a shortsword…?”
Tylin said, “Because with your size, even though by appearance you can gain more muscle mass than usual, you have to fight battles within your limit—which would be your reach. A shortsword’s lightness allows you to fight with one hand free while the other can be used for honoi attacks. That’s how a projectiles type like you should fight.”
Joey tried to argue a point. He said, “But look what I mean; swords can’t really cut down robots; not to mention a tiny sword like the one you wanna give me. Don’t you think I should be using a bigger sword to do that?”
“That’s what you have honoi and guns for,” said Tylin.
Joey couldn’t argue against that logic. He scratched his head and shrugged. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll see what I can do with your preference for a sword. But one a these day’s I’m goanna get strong enough to wield a big-ass sword like those guy do in the anime.”
Even with her translator Tylin didn’t understand the last word Joey said. “Okay now, enough jabbering.”
Tylin looked around to find some loose dirt. She couldn’t so she went to the mouth of the cave outside. There she drew a transmutation circle with a stick.
“How does that work?” said Joey over her shoulder.
Tylin said, “Clastaan says the ruins in the circle are like coded steps that reform matter. One symbol absorbs your energy and thought. Another breaks down the matters, and another reconstructs the matter according to the shape you suggested.”
“Humph,” Joey said.
Once the circle was drawn Tylin motion Joey beside her. She put the bat by the tip into the circle and put her and Joey’s hand on the top.
“I will use my honoi to activate the circle,” she said, “use yours to sculpt the sword to how you want it.”
“No problem.”
They exerted their honoi, and the circled lit up. Joey closed his eyes and concentrated. His and Tylin’s honoi consumed the bat. It shimmered and dissolved to the ground, bubbled and reconstructed itself from a silver and brown blob into a short sword.
The shiny blade steamed only for a few seconds. It was revealed to have small inscriptions along the blade that read, “RAKAI ON YOU BITCHES” in a wild font. The handle had a clay element mixed into the silver that gave it a shiny brown color. Sculpted in the surface was spiraling rune with a grinning skull. The cross-guards were two silver horns sticking up and curved outward at the tips.
Joey held the sword just beneath the two faces and lifted it, examining it with a gleeful glow in his eyes.
Joey took a few swings and was pleased with the weight.
And without a moment’s thought he turned to Tylin and said, “Thanks,” and kissed her.
Both of them retreated from each other with wide eyes and tight lipped mouths.
“Oh shit!” joey said. “Oh shit! Umm…s-sorry Tylin—I didn’t know what came over me! I just umm…”
Tylin touched her tingling lips briefly before dropping her hand. Her flushed face had a tinge of blue in contrast to Joey’s red. “No, no. It was an honest mistake,” Tylin said. “You were…just excited…”
“Yeah, that’s it!” said Joey, nervously jittering his foot. “Ahhh—so we’re goanna continue with the training?”
“Certainly,” said Tylin.
When Tylin turned away to get her sword, Joey grinned, screaming in his head, “I just kissed an alien chic, awesome—and she’s my teacher too!”
Two days later, Joey and Lezura were packed with their goods, most of which they had to buy.
“I guess my Rakai status doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to money,” Joey had said.
“Indeed,” said the vendor, “now pay up!”
The two towed Redbolt behind them among the crowd of hundreds of men and women; all weighed down with their personal belongings as their animals were. They travelled in a loose convoy out of the city, with security personnel stationed at the sides to monitor them.
Outside, the sun got a hand in the face from the clouds, so no one got a welcome from its bright smile this morning. The dark clouds seemed ready to let loose the rain on them, and the stillness in the cool air further built up on their anticipation.
They reached the train track and were all makeshift camping until the train arrived. It was a cacophony of voices quarrelling, conversing and children screaming and laughing, coupled with a few unruly greshkues and mynamathers.
“I can only imagine what the refugee camp will be like,” Lezura said as she observed the scene around her from her standing spot.
“Do you think they’ll have electricity like here?” said Joey, swinging his arms and clapping them.
“I honestly cannot tell you,” said Lezura, shaking her head. “But I do not plan on staying there for long either. Once we get there, I will send a message to the Dielengann Path to come and meet us.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t reach them by telephone?” Joey said.
Lezura smirked at him, and pointed to the spot on her belt where the Sheikon box was. “Who said anything about a cellular phone?”
Joey grinned, and said, “You’re goanna send a signal with your vagina? Neat!”
Lezura swatted at Joey but he ducked out of the way.
Both of them heard people calling their names, and soon saw Tylin, Clastaan, Podge, Tet and the rest of their clan coming out of the hollow dome. Tylin and Clastaan broke from the convoy and hurried up to Joey and Lezura.
“Yo, teach!” Joey said as Tylin stood before them, “You really punched me hard during class yesterday. I almost lost a tooth.”
Tylin inclined her head to him and winked. “Be lucky you lose all of your teeth,” she said, “Just make sure the next time you meet and orderran he doesn’t hand your behind to you.”
Joey made a contemptuous expression and waved his hand. “Aint goanna happen. With the ass kicking you’ve being giving me the past days, I’m pretty much use it by now.”
Tylin realized the speech between the two of them right now was just trying to get over the little kiss they had. She wasn’t that much older than Lezura, but the thought of kissing a younger male wasn’t sitting well with her. Joey was just two years younger than her little brother for crying out loud!
Joey looked over Tylin’s shoulder and saw S’us coming up behind her. She supported herself with a crutch on her left side.
“S’us, you can move around now?” said Joey.
Joey went to correct himself with speech in Naasi, not knowing if S’us was wearing a translator. But she was, and said, “Yes I can, thank you. But I won’t be able to move freely for another few days.”
“Ask Lezura if she’s going to give you a new greshku for the one that got killed,” said I’us.
S’us frowned.
“Is something wrong?” said Joey.
S’us expression lightened. “Oh, it’s nothing…”
“Still, it is wonderful to see that you are okay,” said Lezura.
“Most of it was thanks to your healing,” said S’us. I’us scoffed in her mind. S’us ignored her sister and said, “Say, that healing ability is quite rare. Not much of the best honoi users can do it either. Where did you learn it?”
Joey said, “Oh, she’s a—”
“I try to discover new ways of using my honoi,” said Lezura, giving Joey a cautious look.
Joey understood and kept quiet.
Lezura’s ears swiveled up at the faint sound of screeching metal. She approached the others and said, “The train is coming.”
“Good luck to you two youngsters,” Clastaan said, hugging each of them and kissing them on the forehead.
Joey grimaced and wiped his forehead, hoping that Tylin would do the same to him.
“Don’t get yourselves killed, now,” Tylin said, resting a hand on Joey’s shoulder. She said to Lezura, “Make sure you take good care of him, now…”
Lezura rolled her eyes. “Do we always not?” she embraced Tylin.
Tylin said, “You do know they won’t allow your mynamather onto the train, right?”
“Well…maybe S’us could keep it,” Joey said, staring at her. “You did lose yours, didn’t you?”
S’us nodded at Joey. She approached Lezura, who handed Redbolt’s reigns to her.
The sound of metal being tortured grew louder, and Old Chipping soon rounded the bend. The driver inside hit the brakes and the Old Chippy screeched to a stop. Some yards away. The people quickly gathered their belongings, left their animals with male relatives on orders of the security personnel, and said their goodbyes to their loved one.
“We better get going, Joey!” Lezura said, heaving one of the bags of Redbolt onto her shoulder and taking off with the rest of the crowd.
“Take care, S’us,” said Joey.
“Do not worry,” S’us said, she winked, “I will return you mynamather to you.”
Joey bit back a smile and hurried after Lezura.
“Hurry up, Joey!” Lezura said as she went ahead of the others. “I want to find us a nice spot inside to rest by backside!”
“How about losing a few pounds?” Joey said.
Doors at the side of the train opened and military personnel stepped outside the meet the incoming crowd. One of them, the new captain of the train’s security, stepped out after the others with the movements of a man just waking up.
His subordinates made way for him. He burped off the effects of the drink he just had with a wince, and reached for his pistol off his hip.
The captain fired two shots in the air, and with a brief chorus of yelps the crowd went silent before him. The captain waited until the authorities from the city lined themselves in front of the people and held them back and chattering to stop before he gestured to an officer for a very small microphone; it looked like a blue acorn.
He said into it, “Okay…” he blenched again, a ghastly rasping sound that made the people duck and flinch and some babies wake up crying “…listen up, you people. I am not too keen on having a bunch of hairless aliens on my train, and honestly if it were up to me, it would not have come here in the first place…”
“Wait a minute, Lezura and I have hair, you moron!” Joey said from the back.
“Keep blasted quiet,” Lezura whispered to Joey.
The captain continued, “But because I am under strict orders from our president to help you all, and I am getting paid too, we are all here. But let me tell you all this; cause any trouble on my train, and I promise you I will personally throw out all the troublemakers through the window…is that clear?”
There wasn’t a reply, only angry faces staring at him. Then again, the captain wasn’t expecting them to be nice to him either.
Actually, a reply didn’t come forward because Lezura had stomped on Joey’s foot and shut him up.
Even though the captain clearly stated his dislike for the aliens, his officers were quite calm and professional in their dealings with the women and children as they helped them into the various openings on the train and directed them to spot where they could temporarily call their home.
When being directed inside Lezura got a curious smile from one of the soldiers. Lezura only replied with a quickly turn of the corners of her mouths. And Joey came up in the man’s face and stuck out his tongue. He hurried behind Lezura before the man could react.
Amongst the assembly of women and children were a few young men of various species, somewhere between seventeen and twenty-five, cautiously thrown into the mixture as a deterring agent of any of the soldiers trying to extend their curiosity beyond