No matter how many times my brothers tell me otherwise, I always feel that, deep down, today will be a bad day.
I should probably start from the beginning.
I am a K-Class Ksa, a member of an elite winged team of Threan-type Rethans designed and trained from birth to do one thing – protect the Vice General of the Retha, currently a Threan-type called Elkay Theanon. Following tradition, all K-Class Ksa currently share the Vice General’s surname, and are essentially named after him. Oh and we all have wings. Tradition.
You can call me Arkay.
My main job is two-fold. Not only am I blessed enough to pilot the Vice General’s airship, but I am also his leftclaw, I am by Elkay Theanon’s side almost all the time. I am not as important as his rightclaw though, that belongs to my friend and leader of the K-Class Ksa, Teekay.
Today is different from most. The Vice General has been invited to a Maza meeting – the multi-racial organization that keeps peace among the many species living in our collection of solar systems. The meeting was scheduled to be on Portalia, but for reasons unknown it was moved to a venue in Volaire City, on Kolasi, somewhere the Vice General has not visited before. A security disaster, as we have to spend an extra day flying, and everyone is lagged out. Worse, the Vice General has insisted that we walk to the venue, rather than take our standard wheel-based transport or even make use of our wings and fly, a good 3km walk down one of the busiest streets in the city, something we would have had ten Ksa minimum to deal with, rather than the five Ksa the Vice General has with him today.
Things had gone well so far. Most of the vok around here are Vrekans, large, armoured, beaked beings, very distantly related to us, we’d always had good relationships with them. The same can’t be said for the tiny little insectoid Vohra wandering around.
Suddenly, the Vice General breaks off and tries to ‘ditch’ us. He’d disappeared to speak to a pair of Rethans he had spotted in the crowd. Of course, Teekay and I immediately catch up with him.
“Vice General, sir, please do not do that!” Teekay says as always. His complaints are met with a sigh from the Vice General and amusement from the two standard-type Rethans.
“Teekay, Arkay, do not be rude. These two here are Generals, they deserve your respect.”
“Haha!” the larger of the pair, with navy blue and red armour, laughs. “They already respect us, do not fret, Vice General Elkay!”
“Well said, Gath. Are you on holiday, General Retvik? You deserve it after what happened back in Thre-Sypria.”
The smaller Rethan, who still towers over Teekay and myself, let loose a small smile. “Indeed. We have been visiting the many fine dining facilities here, and next week we return to Gath’s home in Palaestra on Portalia, where I’ll be spending the rest of my break.”
The Vice General nods. “Sounds wonderful. Would love to speak to you both more, perhaps we can meet up after today’s Maza Meeting?”
Again, Retvik smiles, but the pleasantries are interrupted by a large explosion about 50m down the street. Immediately, Teekay pulls the Vice General away, while I shepherd everyvok else backwards and away from the danger. We both receive a telepathic message from Enkay, who has been circling above us, informing us of the threat.
“Four-eyed Vohra?” Another message from Veekay repeats. “What does that eve-”
Veekay is cut off as more explosions send shards of glass, plastic and concrete flying everywhere. I catch sight of what Enkay is talking about. They certainly look like four-eyed Vohra, but they are carrying weaponry I’ve not seen before. Most of them are destructively firing blasts of energy, but two of them appear to be… disintegrating innocent beings!
“We need to get everyone off the streets to safety!” Geekay shouts, despite that being what I am already doing. Unfortunately for us, simultaneous explosions rock the landscape, sending rubble flying everywhere. Thankfully, Geekay and I have already managed to get most vok behind us and away from the now crumbling buildings.
Another explosion traps Teekay under rubble, leaving the Vice General right in the open. Curse it, why hadn’t they moved back in time? There’s an enemy Vohra heading towards them, disintegration weapon at the ready, pointing directly at the Vice General. There is no one else nearby. I know what I have to do.
Without hesitation, I throw myself between the Vohra and the Vice General, taking the shot for him.
This was not the holiday I asked for. I wanted to spend it eating fine, non-Rethan food and drinking fancy alcoholic drinks, not find myself glued to a ceiling.
Where am I anyway? A second ago, I was helping my partner dig a poor little Vrekan kid out of rubble, the next second I’m shot in the back and now I am here? Where is here? What happened? Gath is going to be worried sick!
Okay, calm down, Retvik. You’re a distinguished General, you need to not panic.
There is not much around. I am being held up by some sort of hideous, squelchy black goo. It feels ever so slightly irritant against my non-armoured skin. The ground below me appears to be made of gold for some reason, lit up with red and green lights. There is a wall to my north, and two pathways stretching east and west.
Something moves ahead of me. It is a cloud? And it is carrying a staff of some sort? I hold my breath as I watch as the sentient, white gas wanders by. It hasn’t realised I am conscious. It disappears down one of the paths.
I have no idea where I am, but it’s certainly not anywhere that makes sense. Alright, let’s look to my left and right. Maybe that will help.
There’s nothing but black goo to my right. To my left though, there is a fellow Rethan. One of the little K-Class Ksa that had accompanied General Elkay. Bet their job was stressful, considering how the Vice General has a habit of taxing his poor Ksa and trying to pull disappearing acts on them. I check to make sure that no vok is coming and try calling to the Ksa. What was his name again?
“Te- No… Arkay? Are you awake, Arkay?”
The Threan-type nods. His mouth is covered with the goo, his constraints much tighter than mine.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Mmmph.”
I take that as a no. I don’t know the kid well enough to communicate telepathically, but try anyway. His Ksa training though automatically locks me out. I look him up and down… well, left to right… and realise how tiny he is. Looks like he is barely out of kidhood, but I know that the K-Class Ksa have been active for 10 years.
We are both distracted by another cloud of stuff floating by, this one carrying a gun of sorts. I have an idea. A stupid one. Considering where we are though, nothing seems stupid any more.
“HEY, CLOUD THING!” I suddenly shout. The gaseous mess is caught by surprise and starts… collapsing in on itself? After a couple of seconds, the gas has turned into some sort of weird creature, like a cross between a Vohra and a Cassid. It’s also pointing its gun at me and saying something that I don’t understand. It quickly realises its mistake and switches to Panglish.
“Silence, Mortal!”
Suddenly, the creature is thrown against the wall. Repeatedly. Quite painfully as well. This lasts a good ten seconds or so, until the creature is thrown to the floor, unconscious.
“MMmmph mmmph mmmph!” Arkay mumbles, his mouth still covered.
“Yeah, fuck him!” A voice comes from behind Arkay. It is another Rethan, by the sound of it. “Sorry, fellow Retha, I was unconscious but the sound of our keeper being thrown against a wall woke me up. Where are we?”
“I have no idea…” I admit, only to be rudely shushed by Arkay. He’s concentrating on something, trying to move the body around. He’s probably looking for a key. Smart kid.
His concentration is broken though as another creature comes into view, looking more Vohra than Thanatian. It immediately spots its unconscious brethren, but for some reason, it is smiling? It silently holsters its weird staff weapon, before pulling out a small blade and cutting us down. Feet first, thankfully.
“Finally, a ticket out of here…” it grins. “I’ll meet you as far west as possible. Bring your friends with you…”
The creature disappears, leaving us alone in the hallway.
There’s no way my new boss is going to believe me when… if we get back. Was supposed to be going to the spaceport to catch a flight to Portalia, where I’d been transferred to with a bunch of friends, but then I got captured. But hey, I’m talking with one of the K-Class Ksa, how awesome is that? Apart from being captured.
The weird cloud thing just saved our life and I don’t get why. The big one, Retvik, is busy cutting down other beings. Turns out there’s a ton of different beings here and a lot of them heard what had just happened. Me? I got a better idea, since my arms are free, I can use my scythe claws to cut everyone down.
“Elksia!” I hear my mate Klisos call. I rush over and cut him and his twin sibling Slias down and they both thank me. There must be about thirty of us here. All different races. Mostly Vreka, but there’s us, a couple of Thanatians, Cassids, a Banikan and even a handful of Vohra. Klisos decides he wants to hug me and I hug him back. I think we’re both a bit scared.
We’re interrupted by a large thump. While Retvik and I have been cutting everyone down, the K-Class Ksa went around and knocked out five other of the weird cloud creatures and stolen their weapons.
“We need to get moving. That friendly being is our only way out of here and we need to catch up with it fast. I have relieved these less friendly beings of their weapons!” Arkay barks, his strong voice not really matching his shortness. He gives weapons to those he believes needs them the most, the Cassids in particular. He gives up his own recently stolen weapon and gives it to a Cassid too. Guess he doesn’t need weapons.
Retvik has finally finished and has caught up with us, bringing with him the heavier hitters, the Banikan and the Thanatians. Some of them are in pain, their bodies too large for this low ceiling.
Suddenly, this horrible noise is filling our ears. I want to scream but everyvok else is already doing that. I feel someone grab my hand and we start running. West I think, that’s what the creature said, right?
“Are you sure that will take us home?” I hear Retvik shout far ahead of us. Somehow, Klisos, Slias and me have fallen right to the back of the group. There are more of the creatures coming after us.
They start to get close. Klisos and Slias are both clawing at them and their scythe claws go right through them. I start stabbing wildly too, not knowing what else to do. The first one I strike screams in agony then keels over. My scythe claws killed it?
“You two, move, I’ll hold them back!”
This creature has created a portal for us to leave this horrible place, but the rest of its kind does not seem happy. The first thing the others of its kind did was try and knock it out. Things are going somewhat smoothly, consider-
Spoke too soon. A piece of the ceiling collapses above us, hitting the creature square on the head and revealing another one of the creatures. I claw at the creature, grabbing it and throwing it away. It screams incredibly loudly, considering I only really scratched it. The portal out of here is already beginning to shrink, but Arkay and one of the Vohra jump forward, holding it open with Arkay’s telekinisis and and the Vohra’s gravity-elemental powers.
Thankfully, nearly everyvok is out. Just a few more stragglers. I shout at the remaining beings to hurry up, and somevok cries for help.
“THEY HAVE KLISOS!”
That was Elksia. I check to make sure Arkay and the Vohra are still holding the portal open then charge forward into the fray. Immediately, the creatures panic. I throw one to the ground and stamp on its arm. Rather than just have a broken arm, the whole creature screams as it explodes into a cloud of silver dust. The ones that have Klisos try to escape, but I grab them both by the neck and they let go. Elksia picks Klisos up and pushes her two friends towards the portal. They exit safely and Elksia calls to me to come back.
Suddenly, lasers start flying past us. There’s another scream, this one Rethan in origin. I spin around to see the portal rapidly shrinking. I rush back towards them. Elksia throws the Vohra through, just as the portal snaps shut, pushing everything else away with a blast of energy.
I struggle to my feet as my eyes dart around the confined space, looking for somewhere to go. There’s a vent above us we can hide in. Elksia helps Arkay to his feet and I help them both into the vent. The creature though has switched forms, and I can no longer pick him up. I have no choice but to leave him behind.
My back is burning. I can smell my own singed flesh. I want to cry out but know better than that. I hold in the pain, squeezing it into a ball in my mind. Just as I was trained. Unfortunately, my Ksa training didn’t really cover what to do when one of your wings is severed completely from your body, and the other has a large, still smouldering hole in it.
I just… I just couldn’t block the barrage of lasers in time…
“Arkay, are you alright?”
Our new friend Elksia is trying to tend to my wounds. I don’t want her to.
“Kid, stop struggling, she needs to wrap the wound,” Retvik sighs. We’ve been in here for a while. The creatures can’t seem to find us. He’s wrong about my wings.
“There is nothing you can do to save my wings currently. The wounds are cauterized anyway, wrapping them is not going to do anything for me!” I say that with more anger than I mean. I like to think I am covering up my pain with my anger.
Thankfully, Elksia distracts us both, telling us to quieten down. There are two of the creatures below us, chatting about something. Doing so in a mixture of their own language and Panglish, mostly the latter. The other bits sound a bit like Old Vohran. They seem unaware of our presence.
“They executing the prodot?”
“The trial arkizei tor.”
“Kal. Always hate them Yious ton Avran. At the Dikagstir, na?”
“We go? Want to vleb the traitor suffer. Five halasmen. Who’d think theoktons are edo en our spid?”
“Na, obviously we go!”
The creatures start walking off and I immediately nudge Retvik and Elksia, giving them tekepathic instructions. We need to follow them. Elksia gives me a funny look, I’m not sure she caught any of what the creatures said.
Luckily for us, this whole place is a huge network of tunnels and vents. They clearly really like vents. We’re capable of following the creatures all the way to whatever the Dikagstir is.
At every turn, I worry that we might be detected. These vents are creaky and rattly already and we are making it worse. I am very light, and Elksia is a Hertan-type so she’s pretty light too, but Retvik is a standard Rethan, he weighs a lot more than us and is barely fitting in these vents.
Our ability to follow the creatures comes to an abrupt halt as we arrive at the Dikagstir. The building is made out of a silver and pink translucent material and is the only place we’ve seen so far with any hint of sunlight to it. We can see straight through the building, where this supposed trial is taking place.
“Over there!” Elksia whispers, pointing to our left. It’s the friendly creature that tried to escape with us.
“How do we get to it though?” I ask. There’s at least 100m of creatures and open space between us and it. Retvik though just seems to smirk.
“I have an idea…”
I am completely bound in chains, awkwardly hanging from a Y-shaped frame. Standard Kronospast containment for a supposed criminal such as myself. Yes, I did help those mortals. But I couldn’t stand by and watch as they were fed to our pets for no reason other than our own stupid curiosity. I had to free them. Us god-like beings have our own laws and the Kronospasts in that stupid secret lab were breaking them. Right here in our central city. I was doing my duty.
But of course, my old bad luck strikes again. How in the name of my father was I supposed to know that some of those beings I freed were Theoktons?
Yes, Theoktons of all things. Beings that can kill gods with a swipe of their claws. Five dead. Because of me.
They wheel me into the main court room. On one side of the room is the best Kronospast lawyer around, Cartenious ton Dikaston, as the prosecutor. The seat where my defender would be is empty.
“Do I not get a fair trial?” I ask as I’m left hanging in the centre of the room. The judge, a particularly strict and somewhat feral Kronospast by the name of Jallisar, stamped his foot impatiently at the podium, growling.
“No, you do not.”
“You want to lose your position?” I tut. “I’m not one to normally pull rank, but as heir to the Kronospast Lordship, I think I deserve at least a public defender to help me with my case.”
Jallisar growls again, then whistles. He’s the highest ranking judge around, but he knows I’m right. Through the door I was wheeled through, my cousin Pavrak rushes in, hands filled with paper and the like. He profusely apologies as the doors shut behind him. The only other Kronospasts present are the stenographer, a guy called Taos, a handful of guards and…
I pause. My father, Lord Avra, appears out of thin air. Everyone bows down to him. I try to, but I’m a little chained up right now. He has a heavy look of disappointment on his face.
“My child, do you have any idea what you have done?”
“I ended an illegal operation involving the kidnapping and murder of mortal beings. That is what you often ask me to do!” I snort. “And you always complain that I lack initiative!”
“Silence, prosecuted!” Cartenious interrupts. “Your acts have left five Kronospasts dead and twenty more critically injured. Among those you saved were three Godkillers who caused those injuries and deaths, Godkillers who are now free to roam around and discover their abilities, putting the entirety of our existence at risk!”
“Ahem, sorry to interrupt…” Pavrak mutters as he rummages through a notebook. “If that illegal operation had been dealt with earlier, then we wouldn’t have captured the Godkillers in the first place, and they’d be back at their home none the wiser.”
“We are not dealing with what ifs!” Cartenious barked. “Tahnahos released those monsters and now five Kronospast couples are going to get some very sad communication messages.”
As Pavrak and Cartenious continued to argue, Lord Avra watches on. Occasionally he glances in my direction, only to roll his eyes. I don’t understand, I was doing what he told me to do. He told me explicitly to go to that illegal operation and bring it to an end. He didn’t mention freeing the prisoners but I wasn’t going to just leave the poor things there!
Finally, Avra puts an end to the two bickering lawyers.
“Silence. Jallisar, just put Tahnahos to death. He is unfit to lead, he is unfit to even be alive.”
Everyone else in the room is stunned, even Cartenious. The stenographer has stopped writing, he is so surprised.
“Father?” I cry, completely shocked. “H-how could y-you?”
“Very well…” Jallisar sighs. “Tahnahos tou Avran, I say that you are guilty of causing the death of five innocents, and I sentence you to the stripping of your powers and the destruction of your body.”
Above me, a large, glass cylinder descends, trapping me. The chains keeping me bound fade to nothing, as bolts of lightning strike my body. Immediately, I feel my very existence start to drain away.
Suddenly, I hear shouting.
“RUN, EVERYONE RUN!”
Now, normally a smart general such as myself wouldn’t go with a plan of charging in like a lunatic, but normally I’m not facing creatures that appear to keel over from the smallest of injuries. Having stolen weapons from a handful of unlucky guards, Elksia, Arkay and myself all stormed in to what looked like a really bad court room.
The creature we’re looking for is in some sort of glass chamber, screaming with agony. I’m amazed that they are already putting him on trial.
“Get it out, Retvik, we will cover for you!” Arkay barks as he fires a volley of projectiles from his strange, stolen weapon, and follows it up with a lump of telekinetically thrown glass. Elksia seems to prefer getting up close and is already standing on a pile of corpses. Bless her little Hertan soul.
I do as I’m told and smash the tall, glass cylinder. I feel an odd tingling sensation as bolts of electricity, or something like it, run up and down my body. I shake the feeling off and try and pick up our little friend. Weirdly though, my claws go straight through it, as its body begins to change shape.
“Um, how long can you two hold them off?” I ask amidst the chaos.
Elksia laughs hysterically. “About ten minutes!”
“Make that two and a half!” Arkay interrupts as he takes out a creature riding some sort of cannon. “Their numbers are increasing and… I hate to admit it but I was wrong, my injuries are taking their toll on me…”
“Well, we’re just going to have to hold on!” I sigh as I join in on the fight, knocking out some guy with a crown. Two of the other creatures decide to hide, so I decide to leave them alone.
The creature we’re trying to save finally finishes changing. Its body, rather than looking like a freaky, four-eyed Vohra, now looks a lot like a very skinny Ethran-type Retha. Also it’s awake.
“Thank you for assisting me…” it stutters, clearly still in a lot of pain. “I have enough power to take you three home, on one condition, that I can come with you.”
“Sure thing!” Elksia shouts as she cuts off the arm of one of the creatures. She seems like she’s having way too much fun, but I don’t blame her, these creatures captured us for no reason. My skin is still raw and itchy from the black goo they used to keep us imprisoned.
Arkay brings the ceiling down on the rest of the creatures, and he and Elksia both pull back to where our new friend and I are standing. Our friend grabs Elksia and Arkay by the arm, and commands that I too hold onto him.
“I need a moment to concentrate. Could you, telekinetic one, form a shield around us?” the creature asks.
“Done.” Arkay quickly does as he is told, as the creature starts to hum.
Everything around us starts glowing. But as the creature reaches the peak of its concentration and we start to fade away, the crown-wearing creature fires a ball of energy towards us.
The four of us open our eyes. My three new friends are all slightly dazed and confused. As am I. For reasons unknown, my teleportation spell has failed, and we are not in the Kolasian city I expected. I don’t think we’re even on Kolasi. All around us are fir trees and rocks. To our west, there are several mountains, with a large cave carved into the side of one of them.
“This isn’t Kolasi!” the smallest Retha announces.
I glance around. The small one is right. From the colour of the sky and the amount of nitrogen and oxygen in the air, I deduce that we are in fact on planet Threa. But not present day Threa.
The larger, red Retha inspects his wristbands, which normally contain useful information, but all he finds is confusion. “If we’re on Threa, my bands can’t connect to the global network. And the date and time on this damn thing is completely screwed.”
The small yellow one and the middling green one both check their wristbands too, only to come away with similar problems.
“This shouldn’t be possible!” the green one screeches. “There’s supposed to be global coverage, from 500m down to 50km up! Threa has the best connection of all the Rethan territories!”
I take a moment to get a better look at my rescuers. They too look at me, with similar thoughts in mind.
“Who are you?” I ask.
The big red one looks at me, then smiles. “Ah, silly us. In all that confusion, we forgot to introduce ourselves. How rude of us.”
“We were being shot at though…” the green one giggles. “Fair reason, yeah?”
The yellow one nods and hesitantly introduces himself. “Since we saved you, might as well tell you who we are. I am Arkay Theanon of the K-Class Ksa, and leftclaw to the Vice General of the Retha.”
“I’m Elksia Ksiou. I work with the Silver Fangs on border patrol!” the green one is still giggling, for some reason.
“And I am Retvik Rethianos, general of the 270th Legion of the Retha. What might your name be, stranger?”
“I…” I ponder Retvik’s question for a moment. I want to give him my true name, but is it really my name any more? After all, I am no longer Tahnahos, son of Lord Avra. My own father wanted me dead, unwilling to listen to my pleas of innocence. He wanted to kill me. I decide to share my thoughts with my new Rethan allies. “My name was Tahnahos tou Avran. But since my family, perhaps even the entirety of the Kronospasts, want me dead, I think a name change is in order.”
“How about Tenuk!” Elksia suddenly pops up. Retvik and Arkay both stare at her, unable to understand her thinking.
“Why Tenuk?” Arkay asks.
Elksia smirks slightly. “I knew a vok called Tenuk who got stuck inside a big glass pipe at a construction site. Took us ages to get her out, so in the end we smashed it and freed her. Her parents were pissed!”
Retvik shrugs, but Arkay is still unsure. However I quite like the name.
“Very well. My new name shall be Tenuk!” I declare.
“You will need a surname though…” Retvik is still shrugging. Retvik’s worries though do not bother me in the slightest.
“I can think of one later!”
“My wristband keeps on claiming the date is February 22nd 9997… That can’t be right…” Arkay sighs, interrupting our conversation.
That date… The revelation hits me like a brick. I know exactly where we are. That date was when the Threan Kronospast Mining Facility violently…
My trail of thought is interrupted by the sheer power of a devastating explosion, as a violent shock wave knocks us all to the ground.