Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“After you are finished eating, I will teleport you back to your ship. The teleportation will take a mere few seconds. Do you understand?”

Cyrus gave a thumbs up as he continued eating his food while Celeste and Crystil verbalized their affirmation.

“Your ship gives us an asset which we have never had. I would like to fly with you so that I may combine my magic with your ship’s weapons.”

The notion sent a chill through Crystil.
First, have to make peace with the Kastori, then plan with them, and now have to work directly with their most powerful member by my side?

“Yes, you may fly with me,” she said, leaving unsaid, “
Just this one time, and afterward, my ship is for me and my friends only.
”

“Good. May I ask how agile your ship is? I want to know how I should plan.”

“It’s not that agile compared to the rest of our fleet on Monda, but it’s not a giant brick in the air. And I can’t say how elusive it is relative to the monster. But I am the best pilot on Monda and the best pilot here. I will push the ship to its full capabilities, and then some, if that’s what it takes to kill the beast.”

Erda only gave a smile in response, leaving Crystil wanting a bit more. Erda instead turned to the other two.

“We will bring Calypsius to the battlefield with some of our black magic Kastori. We will also scatter Kastori in the area to launch attacks when we can. Beware, because our magic can only do so much damage, our goal is to use it as a distraction instead of a weapon. Your ship and your weaponry are what we are counting on to win this battle.”

“That…” Crystil began to say, annoyed that they’d have to carry so much of the burden. But she remembered how few Kastori she’d seen, and how barren things above the ground were. Their fight was not hoisted on them by the Kastori, but a necessity for both Kastori and humans. “That is something we will do. I will pilot the ship and use its weapons. Cyrus and Celeste will have Nakar 17s, automatic sniper rifles with explosive rounds. There’s nothing that survives those things.”

“Good,” Erda said, standing up. “That is more than enough information to prepare my people for battle. Take your time eating and come to me when you are ready.”

With a deliberate pause and a prolonged gaze, she said, “Thank you, Crystil,” and turned to leave. If her last three words were meant to establish trust…
they worked
.

The soldier in her reared back, wanting to know what Erda might have up her sleeve. But just as she’d learn to control the cold commander personality around Celeste and Cyrus, she practiced quieting the doubting voice about Erda. If death came from the Kastori, she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

Cyrus stood up, having finished his food, and walked to the tent. Celeste rose shortly after.

“Take your time,” Celeste said. “We aren’t going anywhere without you.”

Celeste’s words, though casual, resonated with Crystil more than she cared to admit. She was tired of losing those she loved, and the feeling of being isolated emotionally from Cyrus and Celeste had not completely left her system.

She ate quickly, walking over to the tent with food still in her mouth. Cyrus and Celeste were already packing up what few supplies they had left. The Kastori’s elimination of their weapons left their burden much lighter.

“Ready?” Crystil asked, and both Orthrans nodded.

Crystil led them to the golden tent, where Amira, with her mask on, held up a hand. Crystil braced herself for the loss of movement and control, but to her surprise, Amira did not cast a spell.

“Don’t you know to wait,” she said bitterly as if the three of them couldn’t understand instructions. “Erda does not take visitors unannounced. I will make sure she can see you.”

Crystil stopped herself from thinking anything, assuming Amira could read her mind.

Amira’s departure lasted less than five seconds. She briskly returned and motioning for them to enter without a word. Crystil didn’t bother to hide the disgust on her face and lumped her in with the other magicologists on Monda.

Inside, Erda stood alone with her mask on.
I’ll never get past that.

“You will feel like you are floating in water,” she warned, her voice garbled by the mask. “Close your eyes as the feeling rises in your body. The whole process will take no more than a few seconds, and you will know immediately when you are back by your ship. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Crystil said.

Celeste held Cyrus’ arm tightly, and the older Orthran pulled his sister in close. Crystil, to Celeste’s left, closed her eyes and slowly breathed, as if deep in meditation. She felt Celeste grab her hand, and Crystil opened hers up. Suddenly, Crystil felt the sensation Erda described, starting in her feet and climbing at a steady pace. Crystil wanted to open her eyes and see what was happening, but dared not trifle with magic. The feeling reached her neck, and just in case, Crystil took a deep breath, wondering if that was her last gasp.

The magic rushed to the top of her head, and she suddenly felt warm, fresh air. She opened her eyes and saw
Omega One
in front of her. She let out her breath of air slowly, happy to quiet the nagging fatalistic voice. She looked up at the sky and was relieved to see the morning sun. Cyrus and Celeste still looked the same. They were still the same people. She was the same person.

“We’re good,” Crystil said calmly. “Let’s go inside and say hello to home again.”

The three briskly walked to the drop-down platform and rose back up in the ship.

“Welcome home,” Cortanus said, leading to pleasant exhalations of relief from Cyrus.

“Good to be home,” Crystil said as she headed for the cockpit. She assumed her commander’s seat and propped her legs up on the dashboard. How long had it been since she assumed that position? Crystil didn’t want to know the answer, because no matter what, it felt too long.

The indulgences did not last long. Crystil walked to the front of a panel on the left wall of the cockpit and pressed her hand against it.

“Cortanus, launch Operation Last Stand,” she said in a slow, clear voice.

She had set the password to be three-pronged—it required a vocalization, the pass phrase and her biometric scan. Once she initiated the transformation, all power would feed straight to the engines and weaponry. No laboratory work, no medical procedures, and no preservation of food could take place. Once she made this change, unless the change was made back within a few hours, there was no turning back. It truly was their last stand.

Crystil watched on a display the changes in power. The whole process took less than ten seconds. When she finished, she looked at the speed the ship could hit—it wasn’t satisfactory. She could only estimate how fast Calypsius could fly, but it was faster than she liked. She needed to remove more dead weight from
Omega One.

Anything that wasn’t essential, or alive, was literally dead weight.

“Everything must go,” Crystil said, and she quickly ran to Cyrus’ room. She knocked, but no reply came. She headed to Celeste’s room and knocked, and Celeste opened the door with her hands. Cyrus laid on the couch on his stomach, his eyes barely open.

“We’ve got work to do,” Crystil said. “We need to remove everything in our rooms, the armory, the VR room, the lab, the medical bay, the kitchen and the cockpit to make this ship lighter. I’m going to need this ship to fly as fast as possible, and even just thirty pounds of extra dead weight could slow us down. Do you both understand?”

Celeste nodded. Cyrus gave no response, and Crystil could not let this one go.

“Cyrus,” she said, as warmly as she could.

“Fine,” Cyrus said, slowly sitting up. “It’s way too soon for cleaning season, but I have wanted to sunbathe on my bed some. I guess it could make it work.”

His smile gave away his attitude, and Crystil nodded her thanks, leaving with a massive smile.

She quickly cleaned out everything in her room, tossing everything she could outside the ship—her bed, her guns, her tablets, her notes. If it wasn’t going to help her fly, she wasn’t keeping it.

But when she came to the last item before her table, she froze.

It was a picture display, no larger than a couple inches, that projected images of her and Dyson from as far back as their first date to their wedding day to the last photo they ever took together. Crystil knew it had to go, but she felt callous just throwing it outside the ship with the rest of their furniture.

She quietly took it. She wanted to tell herself to just keep it, that something barely a pound wouldn’t make a difference. But the soldier in her, gearing up for perhaps her last battle, said it would all make a difference. She went to find Celeste and bumped into Cyrus instead.

“Cyrus,” she said, drawing his attention and eye contact for the first time that day. She wondered if he would accept it, but… “Can you do me a favor? Just safeguard this.”

He looked down at the small display, a cube of insignificance to him, but then looked into her eyes. She knew immediately he understood its meaning. He grabbed it from her, his hand pressing down on hers, and nodded without a word.

“Thank you,” she said, and she quickly wheeled back around.

49

Cyrus didn’t want to feel sympathy for his commander. He wanted to look at her as someone she couldn’t trust. It would’ve made life a lot easier and his state of mind clearer.

Instead, for her to entrust him… he didn’t know what to think of the sympathetic and grateful emotions that jumbled his mind. He certainly didn’t feel angry or annoyed at her anymore.

So instead, he quietly headed down the airlock one last time, placing the projector in one of his pockets while carrying a small table in both arms. Once he reached the open air, he tossed the table toward the pile of furniture at the edge of the forest, much to Celeste’s chagrin.

“What?!?” Cyrus said when his sister made an annoyed expression. “This furniture is so not in style on this planet. Besides,
Omega One
is an overrated place to live compared to the Kastori camp. The security is much better down there, and the cost is much more reasonable!”

Celeste maintained her annoyed expression, but a subtle turn of the lips told Cyrus his sister couldn’t take him seriously.

“You’d better be careful, the Kastori might decide to raise rent prices for non-magic practitioners.”

“All because we don’t practice magic? That seems rather unfair.”

“Watch, in six years, the Kastori will be inhabiting
Omega One
, and the rent there will be five times what it is now.”

“Ohhhh,” Cyrus said, and neither sibling could maintain a serious facade, breaking into laughter at the same time. For Cyrus, it felt good to just laugh for another few hours before the sun came down and the jokes became coping mechanisms instead of bonding agents.

“Oh, man. Our time here, it’s not quite the palace, but you know what,” Cyrus said, as he sat down on a couch, just within the sunlight. “I feel like I’ve gotten to know you better in the last couple of weeks than I did in the previous two years.”

“Well, I’d hope so, since we were both asleep,” Celeste said, mockingly crossing her arms.

“Indeed,” he said, admitting defeat. “You know what I mean, though.”

“I do,” she said. “And the same for you. Isn’t it funny. We ‘hang out’ as brother and sister on Monda but never really hang out. Just the two of us. Most of the times whatever girl you were dating was there, or Dad would be there, or even if it were just us, we’d have a guard nearby. I don’t feel like we ever got to have the true sibling experience until now.”

“And it only took a monster, the destruction of our home planet, and an angry commander to bring us together,” Cyrus said, and even Celeste chuckled. “No, but really, thank you, Celeste. You put up with a lot of things from me, and you manage to do it while keeping Crystil and me sane. Without you, we’re probably the monster’s waste by now.”

“Wow, Cyrus,” Celeste said as her brother laughed. “You. You’re absurd.”

“That’s me!” Cyrus said.

Celeste sighed, and Cyrus looked at his sister with pride. She really was the glue that kept their band together. Without her, they would’ve died at about fifty different spots—on the ship after VR training, on Anatolus after he left, in the cavern with the lupi… and that didn’t even mention her negotiations with the Kastori.

To think, I was worried she’d suffer a bunch of nervous breakdowns when we came out of hibernation. Looks like I was the one who suffered that fate.

“Yep, I’m that guy. And you’re the one who both loves me and isn’t afraid to hit me when I need it,” Cyrus said.

“Which I need to do more often,” Celeste said. “But thanks, Cyrus. It’s nice to know we got to this point before things might end.”

“Hey,” Cyrus said, surprised his sister would speak so ominously. “Don’t say that.”

“I said might, not will,” she said, turning to the sky. “But just… appreciate what we’ve done, because tonight is as likely a night as any for this to end.”

Cyrus could not argue with that. And as much as he loved goofing off, both to keep things lighthearted and to avoid depressing conversations, he had to face the end at some point too. He knew if he didn’t confront it now, and something happened to Celeste or Crystil… he could never forgive himself.