CHAPTER FOUR
The first thing to grab Joey’s attention by the throat was the sheer size of the yelm trees they flew over.
“Yo…” he said, “Lezura, you ever climbed one of those?”
Lezura checked her radar to see if they were in the right zone. They were, somewhat, but the Ixian location was a mile away. “Why would I want to climb a yelm tree, Joey?”
Joey saw a flock of green and blue, featherless birds ascended from a ville tree to his right. “Come on! You’re telling me you live here and you haven’t done that?”
“It never crossed my mind to,” said Lezura. Lezura descended below the last yelm tree I sigh, now gently skimming the top of the canopy to see what was below with her goggles. “But I would like to explore the ecosystem of such a plant.”
Joey saw more of the birds. This time he noted that they had long necks and beakless mouths. “Lezura, what are those birds called?”
Lezura looked where Joey was pointing. She zoomed in with her goggles for more detail—now being able to see their orange eyes and membranous wings. “Those are lankers,” she said.
Joey murmured the name to remember it. Then to west he saw some flying animals.
But these ones were massive!
Joey studied them as best as he could; bright brown, featherless skin, wide head on longs necks and a mouth with the yellow beak made into primitive teeth around it. They had pink membranes in their wings and tails, and two membranous frills at the sides of the head over their earholes.
“Tratalies,” said Lezura when she gave them a look.
“Do you have anything that gets bigger than that?”
Lezura took a few seconds to answer. She was studying the landscape with her eyes and noticing that the trees were thinning. “Rare creatures called jai’jes,” she said. “They live on another continent in the mountains.”
Joey sat back, letting all the sites and the information supplied by Lezura fill him up. He wanted to be a part of this new world, and felt certain things of his pass he should drop off. They would be useless here.
Actually he couldn’t. He couldn’t forget where he came from, the hardships and struggles he had to endure. It was what made him tough, and he would need it to get through this world.
He looked up and saw the twin moons, I’us and S’us, and an idea struck him. He squinted under the sun and put his index finger between the moons, and grinned.
Lezura got closer to the location of Ixia, but something was wrong. There were supposed to be four yelm trees in the Yuxu forest near it. But Lezura didn’t see them. An idea as to what it was brewed in the back of her mind, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Her radar picked up something. She looked at the screen and studied the icons against the grey background. There were ridges and groves indicating the landscape, each having numbers that indicated their height.
At the top of the screen the icon of a wrench, symbolizing advance civilization, was being displayed from a narrow yellow line.
“Oh no…” Lezura said in a hollow voice.
Joey unfolded his arms from behind his head. He sat forward, turning his head out of the vanilla scented hair of Lezura blowing in his face and said, “What? What’s wrong?”
Lezura looked forward in the distance, and saw it. “There!” she pointed.
Joey looked forward and saw it too.
The narrow, silver top of the building was coming up in their sights like a magnificent metal pillar rising out of the land to touch the blue.
“What’s that?” Joey said.
Lezura slowed down the Thwopter, sensing something terrible. “That is not supposed to be there,” she said. “That…that is an orderran construction.”
Joey remembered enough about what Lezura had told him about the orderrans to have an idea, and felt the same pang of fear as Lezura did. They were they guys that invaded the planet and had set up their suppressive colonies.
“Th—then where’s this Ixian place you’re talking about?”
“Do you not understand you dimwit?” Lezura said. “It means that the orderrans from Tartian extended their colonization up this far since I left. Either the Ixians have fled…or…”
Lezura trailed off, something on her radar grabbed her attention.
Joey watched the rest of the tower rise over the distance. The pointed top widened down to a conical roof and splayed into many levels of ring-like bridges around the body. These bridges held light green solar panels on the first level, with windowed rooms going down.
Joey saw others like it popping up—and black flying vehicles going around the area like vultures circling an animal’s carcass. And one seemed to be coming his way!
“Lezura…?”
On the radar Lezura saw the approach of an unidentified aircraft heading their way. She assumed that Joey must have seen it with his own eyes.
I cannot believe this, Lezura thought. I just got here and already I am struck with this. But it will not end here. Not like this.
“Hold on tight, Joey!”
“What—”
Lezura abruptly swerved the Thwopter, the antigravity orbs tilting in their sockets to spin the vehicle. Joey would have been thrown out had it not been for his seatbelt. Lezura stepped on a brace and pushed it in, the thrusters puffed louder into a steady jet, and the Thwopter jetted away, throwing Joey against his seat.
The vehicle pursuing Lezura and her Rakai was a Dawhawk, nearly four times as large as the Thwopter for transporting troops. It was a silver-white, shaped like a nut with two long wings on each side that house an antigravity orb, and two thrusters at the back blazing out red flames. The top was encased by a thick sheet of glass, and at the front were four long-barreled guns grouped in two.
Lezura looked back and saw the Dawhawk catching up with her. Even for a vehicle of its size it was moving pretty fast. Lezura decided the best course of action was to lose it in the trees where her Thwopter could easily navigate.
The Dawhawk fired, flashes of yellow rippled through the air. A few hit the back of the Thwopter. Joey lurched forward and screamed, “Lezura!”
“Shut up, boy!” Lezura said, sizing up a good yelm tree and blocking out Joey’s wailing. She whispered, “There…”
Lezura pulled back on the steering wheel, arching the Thwopter from the base of the colossal yelm tree and into the galaxy of leaves. The wind pulled back the skin on Lezura’s still human cheeks but she kept her frame steady.
The yelm tree’s limbs where so huge that one of them could have easily supported an elephant, Joey noticed as Lezura maneuvered through them. They had deep cracks and crevices with multicolored flowers and large blue mushrooms. Some parts of the branches were completely smothered with blue and green moss; some sections of it moved when the Thwopter came near it or the bullets slapped into it.
Lezura noted that there were even smaller trees growing out on the limbs.
“Fascinating,” she said like she was quietly observing in her garden. She pressed a button on her goggles and snapped a picture of them. “It seems that because of the yelm tree’s sheer size, and the fact that it starves other plants of sunlight, some of the plants have evolved to feed off the yelm tree itself or use it as leverage to get closer to the sun.”
Joey pointed forward over Lezura’s shoulder with a terrified face. “Lezura!” he said.
“What?” Lezura looked ahead of her and saw an imminent limb like a wall closing the distance to them. “EEEEEK!”
Lezura narrowly swerved out of the way in an upside down flight. Joey held onto his bag and bat, watching insects fly by him, and one into his mouth. He spat it out and shuddered.
Lezura twisted the Thwopter right-side up, still going higher for the smaller branches.
They neared some lankers and sent them flying in an orchestra of squawking, and some hairless, blue-skinned monkeys with longs snouts and clawed tails howled chaotically and swung out of the way.
The Dawhawk shot down huge vines in its way and matched the trajectory of the Thwopter with each move it made, but the smaller vehicle was getting a head of them by slipping through the smaller braches.
So the occupants inside decided to use another method.
One of the doors at the side popped up and slid back, revealing a light blue colored interior that was soon flooded with leave and insects. A robot stepped up at the edge of the door. It was slim built with a barreled chest. Like all orderran-modelled robots it had the black primary color and a white face. Silver wiring peeked from between its joints. Its hands and five had five digits that were silver. Its shoulders and head had deep brown coloring. Three white crests were on the top of its head, and its mouth was a jagged line all across.
It was the common, standard issue Cyri-bot.
On its back the Cyri had strapped on a set of artificial wings. In its hand was a compact, black segmented rifle.
Two more Cyries came beside it. The first pressed a button on the top of the pack over its shoulder, and antigravity orbs jutted off the sides attacked to stalks. It turned to the others and opened its jagged mouth, letting out a high pitched, squealing laugh. It jumped out of the airship and shot forward with the antigravity orbs leaving a trail of fading blue.
The other Cyries followed. So did three more, all laughing manically. And as the rest decided to fall back, the Dawhawk’s right wings hit into a limb, snapping them off like twigs and flipping the Dawhawk around.
As the occupants inside screamed at the top of their artificial vocal cords the momentum gave the airship enough force to spin continuously until it crashed into the trunk of the yelm tree. It didn’t exploded right away, but the severed wings were on fire and smoking, and the crushed ship landed between two branches where it was stuck.
“We did it!” Joey said as he saw the demise of the Dawhawk.
They were approaching the top were the sunlight hit the red leaves and bathed everything in a glowing touch of crimson.
“Really?” said Lezura.
The flying Cyries appeared before Joey. One fired off some shots, but Joey ducked just in time to have one of them zip pass Lezura’s ear.
Lezura felt the sensation and her ear twitched, then both ears poised up as she said, “No, Joey—really?”
“No,” he said.
The Cyri laughed at the organisms. It said in its orderran tongue, “Clax ini ebu ach ida!”
Joey scratched his head at the words and said, “What?”
Lezura maneuvered the Thwopter slowly to the right, down back to the forest, and the Cyries were right on her tail. “It said ‘prepare to die, meat bag’!” said Lezura.
Joey frowned, saying, “I just got dissed by a robot?”
The Cyries fired at the thrusters, effectively blowing them a part piece by piece.
The Cyri at the front twirled in joy. “I got them!” it shouted in its language amongst its peers, and crashed right into a green-leafed tree like a bug on a windshield.
“I cannot maintain control of the Thwopter's trajectory!” Lezura screamed over the computer’s warning wail. “We have to jump!”
“That’s crazy, Lezura!” said Joey, with the bag on his back and one hand holding onto the back of Lezura’s seat.
“It is the only way!”
The Thwopter was a flying like a crazy jetlighter, leaving a trail of smoke and burning debris as it zigzagged down. Lezura struggled with the controls like a child with a biapta. Sweat poured from her chin onto her wet shirt. Finally the machine submitted to her, and made on a steady path, though a bit wobbly.
“Get ready, Joey,” said Lezura.
Joey stood up in his seat, holding onto the seatbelt and his baseball bat. Of all the crazy things I’ve done in my life, this beats them all!
Lezura unlatched her bag from the floor while still steadying the steering wheel. She saw a large enough limb coming and timed it. When the time came, she shouted, “Jump!”
The human and nycarman leaped out of the Thwopter, letting it crash in a burst of flames way below in the gloom. Lezura and Joey fell several feet onto the limb. The mass of moss provided a little softness for them to land on, but it was still painful.
Joey tried to get to his feet but slipped and fell in the muck. He cautiously got back up this time, turning to see Lezura rummaging through the large bag.
Above them the Cyries weaved through the limbs and vines and approached them with gunfire. Joey ran toward the best source protection, Lezura.
“Any ideas?” he said as he slid next to her.
Lezura spun around with a white, square-shaped object, thick with rounded ends and reddish-pink light coming out from the lowers sides and front. Lezura pressed down on a long button on the top and tossed it. The device landed on three small legs and projected pinkish-red matter from the light ports that formed a six feet high, two meter wide square shield.
Joey followed Lezura’s lead and crouched behind it, letting the gunfire from the Cyries rip away at the shield with numerous pulses until the shield started to peel.
In Lezura’s other hand she had something like a very fat, bronze maggot with a short blade of gold on the head.
Ewwww, Joey thought.
“When I say go, charge into them and try to steal one of their jetpacks,” said Lezura.
Joey’s ears were clear this time as he knelt behind Lezura. “Got it,” he said.
Eventually the light of the shield-projector died and the shield faded, and the Cyries had to reload.
Lezura shouted, “Go!”
Joey charged from behind her, screaming at the machines with his bat raised. The chubby thing in Lezura’s hands gave way under presser when she squeezed it and channeled in some of her honoi, pushing its mass to both ends and stretching its body out into a long spear. She followed behind Joey.
The Cyries dropped their weapons, taking the little time to flick their wrists and produce two blades form hidden ports; known as Flayers. They screamed their battlecry and ran into the fleshy enemies.
Lezura whirled her spear with an artistic grace, parrying repeated attacks from three Cyries at once. She crouched and whirled her spear over her head, cutting off a Cyri’s hand.
Lezura fired a burst of honoi on the surface of the limb, stimulating a vine lying there into a writhing frenzy. It wrapped itself around the crying Cyri and hurled it off the limb over yonder.
Joey raised his bat and threw the force of his body behind it, knocking back the Cyries. He used the opening to swing at one’s head, but it ducked beneath the bat, countering with a shallow cut on Joey’s chest. Joey backpedaled and parried the other Cyri’s slash with the handle of his bat, sidestepped and whacked the Cyri in the head.
The other Cyri produced another set of blades from its other hand and thrust it into Joey’s shoulder.
Lezura stood still while her calculating eyes followed the movements of the screaming robots around her. She casually flicked the spear at all of them to parry their attacks—then suddenly had to move, snapping her head out the way of the blades of a Cyri; though they still scored bloody marks across her cheek. Lezura took the opening to ram her shoulder into the Cyri, and lifting her body like a whale breaking the ocean surface she threw the Cyri over her shoulder.
Lezura fired a blast of honoi at the other Cyri as it leaped in midair, knocking it out of the sky with a dent in its chest.
Lezura ears flexed painfully at the piercing cry of Joey. She turned to see the Cyri with its blade in his shoulder, and Joey holding off the other hand. She was about to intervene when she saw Joey roll onto his back, put his feet in the Cyri’s chest and kicked it over him, yanking its blades out with a spurt of blood.
Lezura’s senses screamed at her to look behind. Her ears seemed to swivel in the direction first, and Lezura saw the Cyri coming to attack. She jabbed the spear in the tree, using it as the base to leap and drop the Cyri with a scissor-kick across its head.
She ran to help Joey who was whacking the down robot in the head with his bat. She stopped him and pushed him aside, retracted her spear by pushing together at the center, and searched the robot for a spot to remove the jetpack. She pulled off the straps off the Cyri. She lifted it up and found that it was attached to a cord running down to a mechanism on the foot.
So that is the control, Lezura thought.
Joey spotted the robots reaching for their discards guns. He turned to Lezura, clutching his shoulder. “They’re getting up!” he said.
Lezura put on the pack and put her foot into the steering mechanism. She turned to Joey and said, “Come on!”
Joey ran towards Lezura. A Cyri behind him saw the aliens escaping and activated his wings. It floated up, positioned himself horizontally and kicked off. The remaining two followed.
When Joey reached Lezura at the edge she reached out and clutched him, pressing him against her chest. Joey felt Lezura’s warmth and her sweet, nutty-vanilla scent. He blushed, never being so close to a girl—and never knowing they smelt so nice!
The Cyri at the front wailed and stuffed a clip in its weapon from off its waist.
“Hold on,” she said.
Joey tightened his gripped around Lezura’s firm waist.
Lezura touched the switch on the top and felt the push of the antigravity orbs and the air-thruster as she was pushed forward. She twisted her foot to maneuver through the network of branches. She could hear the storm of gunfire slapping in trees behind her. One bullet grazed her left leg; another touched the tip of her ear and made her yelp.
She broke through the yelm tree, feeling the roaring wind wash over her as she descended to the forest, and constantly she moved to deny the Cyries a perfect aim.
Lezura fell from nearly four hundred stories, and with her added speed from the jetpack the distance was rapidly closing. Nearing the canopy Lezura straightened her foot, steadily she lifted herself into a sixty degree descend.
She felt Joey’s fingers sinking deeper in her flesh. One of his hands roamed down, and touched her bottom.
“H-Hey?” Lezura said, blushing.
“Sorry!” said Joey. “I just couldn’t resist! Lezura you have a nice butt!”
She was just meters from the forest. She said, “We are going to land.”
Lezura place her folded spear before her face and crashed through the trees. Vines and small branches slapped and cut them all the way down. Joey screamed all the way, his heart pumping so fast he felt like it would jump out of his chest and say “Hello”.
They fell into a mess of vines, but their momentum still pushed them down, stretching the vines until they snapped like rubber bands. Lezura reached over and turned off the wings. She forcefully pushed Joey off. “Separate or else we will land like a heap of rubbish!”
Joey reluctantly let go of Lezura, reached out and grabbed the nearest vine. He was swung into a sinni tree.
Lezura carefully watched and waited until she felt the tugged of the braches no more, and saw the forest floor below. She spun her body to face the ground feet first, and turned on the jetpack once more.
Her descent slowed as she reached the ground, and once she was close enough she turned off the wings. The residual wind from the wings pushed away the leaves as she landed in a crouch. Lezura looked up to see where Joey was, the sunlight glinting off the lens of her goggles.
She found the sinni tree where he had crashed into. “Joey?” she said.
Sinni trees grew to a height of seven stories, with trunks of bright green and natural swirling indentations, feathery purple flowers popping out of their trunks and yellow-green leaves. They were noted for roots that were up to three meters thick and erupted out of the ground to search the land for other sources of water.
Lezura ran up on one of the roots, splayed form beneath the tree with other roots like some woody octopus, and went under the tree.
“Joey?” she said through cupped hands.
She saw some violent thrashing in one section. She zoomed in with the goggles and saw Joey’s foot kick out briefly. But before she could call again Joey fell out.
Lezura’s first instinctive reaction was to switch on the wings and fly up to meet him, but she noticed that Joey was holding onto a vine. Joey gritted his teeth, but the smile on his face was unmistaken. The vine stopped a few meters off the ground, bouncing him back up like a bungee. When it lowered again Joey let go.
Lezura dropped her weapon and opened her arms. Joey landed in Lezura’s waiting arms, the hand with the bat dropping to the ground. Being a nycarman; and with honoi coursing through her body, Lezura was slightly stronger than the average human, and Joey was smaller than the average human teenage male, so the weight wasn’t a strain.
Joey and Lezura stared at each other without any immediate thoughts. It wasn’t until then when Joey unknowing lifted the goggles off Lezura’s eyes that he saw that her face was so beautiful.
I wonder what her alien body looks like? Joey thought.
And Lezura never knew that Joey had such bright brown eyes, for in the light of the sun they glowed like liquid amber.
And the Cyries burst through the canopy in a ruckus. One spun around uncontrollably and crashed into a tree, landed on the ground and was pushed through the leaves like a stunt car out of control.
But the other two Cyries were focused. They discarded their empty rifles and produced their wrist-blades with an audible cling.
Lezura dropped Joey unceremoniously on his injured shoulder. She ignored Joey’s swearing and took up her spear, extending it into its combat form. She lowered her goggles and let it dangle around her neck.
“Joey,” she said, “stay put. You cannot continue any further.”
Joey looked at her with a grumpy, sweat-slickened face and said, “The hell made you think I was goanna get back up?”
Lezura and the Cyries went forward, running through small trees and tall flowers until they reached. Lezura’s gunshot wound in her back still throbbed like a kick from a mynamather, the one on her cheek burned with the sweat that soaked into it, the graze on her thigh was stinging, and her muscles burnt like her blood was lava.
But she couldn’t let them have Joey. He had an important role to play. And Lezura had to see her again.
The first Cyri leaped onto a pomeg tree trunk, kicked itself off and nearly cleaved off Lezura’s head with a kick. As it went over her head Lezura jabbed the spear up into the other Cyri’s jaw, grunted at pushed it further into its CPU. Lezura yanked it out, twirled with the spear and slapped the Cyri across the head.
Satisfied with the deep cut she spun and blocked the other Cyri’s blow in time. It produced its other wrist-blades and added to its assault.
This is unusual, Lezura thought as her weapon gashed sparks with the Cyri. Usually mechs do not have this kind of fighting capability. The Cyri dropped on one hand, lifted its body in the air and kicked Lezura in the gut with both feet. She rode the blow and backpedalled out of the way—just as the Cyri flipped in the air and landed screaming with its blade next to a tree near Lezura’s head. This one must have had sentient combat techniques installed. She countered another blo, ducked and swiped the Cyri’s feet from beneath it with her foot. Intriguing!
Before she landed the tip of the spear in the Cyri’s head, the robot pushed off the ground and flicked its feet into Lezura’s gut, sending her sliding across the ground. Lezura felt one of her ribs crack.
She tried getting up but the pain stopped her in her tracks. The Cyri was crouched, grinning in a raspy voice. It ran on all fours, leaped in the air above Lezura just as she felt the pain in her lower rib. Lezura saw the glisten of the wrist-blades in the sunlight and squinted.
“As if!”
And Joey flung the bat in the Cyri, knocking it clean out of the air. The Cyri landed, flailing miserably on the ground. It sprang back on its hands and feet to see Joey standing with a big stone in one hand and walking down towards it.
Joey said, “Acting like you’re a kung fu Master—jumping all over the damn place, doing all kinds a stunts, and then you’re goanna kick my Chandelier in the gut?”
“Chevalier…” Lezura said impatiently.
She knew Joey didn’t stand a chance in hell against the robot. But she couldn’t find the strength to move. Come on. Joey is in danger. Move Lezura…move!
Joey lifted the stone. “Go eat a bag shit!” he said.
Before Joey even got the stone above his head the Cyri had already crisscrossed on all fours and reached up to Joey, Flayers ready.
Lezura’s panic exploded into despair. After two healings with her honoi, she didn’t have much left. It could either be used to heal her wound, or save Joey.
She opened her palm at the Cyri, and a sharp beam with a rounded head zapped out. It struck the Cyri in the back, freezing it in its posture. The attack didn’t possess its usual strength, but it got the job done.
The Cyri’s eyes died to dark hollows, and it stumbled aside.
A startled Joey stood there staring at the fallen machine. He lowered his stone, touched it with a foot, and decided that hitting it in the head with the stone was just as good. After doing so he quickly went over Lezura.
“Can you move?” Joey said.
“Not without support,” said Lezura.
She wrapped an arm around Joey’s shoulder and he helped her up. She braced herself with her spear, and looked around for any signs—
“Look at that dork,” said Joey, pointing at the Cyri darting around the air in an attempt to get control of its wings.
“I do not have any more energy left to shoot it down,” said Lezura.
The Cyri finally stopped, hovering steadily above them. It looked down, shook its fist and threw garbled words at them. Lezura didn’t even bother to translate for Joey. The Cyri flew away, still cursing.
“Where’s it going now?” said Joey.
“Back to get reinforcements,” Lezura said. “Joey, get your bat and your bag. We have to move.”
“Wait, Lezura,” he said, “you’re still injured—can’t you heal it like the last time.”
“Like I just said, I am out of honoi.”
Joey said with confused look, “Is that what that supercool blue stuff you blasted that robot with is?”
“Yes,” she said, “now go and get your items. I will explain more of it to you after I find somewhere to rest.”
“Shouldn’t we get some of those jetpack thingies?” said Joey.
Lezura stopped in mid-thought. She turned to Joey and smiled. “That is not a bad idea,” she said.
Joey smiled back at her, somehow delighted that Lezura approved of something he said.
A shrill cry through the trees made them look up. They didn’t see anything, but the presence of other things was dwelling all around them and they could feel it.
“What the hell was that?” said Joey.
“We should get going,” said Lezura. “Our commotion will attract curious animals. And some of them love to eat creatures like ourselves.”
Joey’s internal tension suddenly rose. “Damn. First it was robots, now I have to worry about things trying to eat me. What a warm reception I’m getting…”
Lezura said, “Welcome to Sangetsu.”
Walking through the omnipresent forest, Joey had discovered some very interesting creatures and plants. One of such was the silkslug, though it looked more like a short, chubby segmented worm than an actual slug.Its pale body had blue eye patterns on its back, and it had a narrow head with four eye stalks. The slug made webs between tree branches. Joey even had the privilege of witnessing its feeding habits. A green bug had flown into the sticky trap and entangled itself. The slug leisurely slithered down its slimy thread, and gaped open its mouth and swallowed the bug whole.
There was also the tapike, something Joey thought resembled a larger than average rat with yellow skin and a rounded head. Its eyes were large and blue and its ears were drooping. It had brown on its ears and feet, and when Joey and Lezura had gotten too close, it hissed, exposing its chisel-teeth, and darted into a nearby bush.
The second largest land animal he saw was when Lezura had stopped him, and they hid behind a tree and observed the timid creature.
It was squat, with yellow skin broken apart by green rings with brown spots in them. Its head and snout were long with green bristles running from the top down to its rump. Its snout was enclosed by large beak, split vertically down the front. It was chewed some hespi berries off a bush a meters from them, opening the beak to expose a four-part mouth.
Lezura called it a karoti, and when it heard the snigger of Joey’s remark to its big head, the animal scurried away.
Joey and Lezura didn’t travel for long, deciding to take a rest under a sinni tree’s root to ease the pressure off their wounds.
They laid out the jetpacks before them in the leafy ground, along with Lezura’s spear and Joey’s bat. Joey sighed loudly and searched inside his bag for something, and pulled out a packet.
He gestured to Lezura and said, “Want some beef jerky?”
“Yes please,” she said.
So they sat down eating jerky under a giant tree’s root, looking up at the beams of light falling through the canopy with particles of dust dancing in them like f