The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (13 page)

A few hours
later….

Nick was making his way down the
corridor, intent on returning to his quarters, but his steps faltered when the
floor beneath him began to vibrate.   

“What the hell?”

He stopped and
turned circles, staring at the floor, trying to figure out what was causing the
strange vibrations.
Is the ship under attack?
Thump, thump, thump. The
vibrations strengthened. The reverberating hollow thuds were coming from
somewhere down the hall. It started out softly at first but grew ever stronger
with each thump. Nick put his hand against the cold metal wall of the corridor
to steady himself as he decided whether or not he should run.
Could it be
the sound of cascading explosions tearing through the hull?
His heart
pounded faster as the thundering noises intensified. Crap, whatever it was, it
was definitely getting closer!

Suddenly, Karg
rounded the corner swiftly, almost plowing Nick over as he passed. 
Momentarily knocked off balance, Nick pushed off the wall to right himself and
ran down the corridor behind Karg. The very thought of Karg running from
anything caused a tingle of fear to race up Nick’s spine. He wasn’t about to
get left behind. Nick didn’t even know where he was going; he was just
following the big guy. But as they ran, something odd registered in Nick’s
brain. Now the sounds were in front of him.

“What the…?”
Nick cocked his head as he watched Karg’s feet impacting the floor. The sounds
weren’t explosions at all. The strange vibrations were coming from Karg’s
massive weight, shaking the ship as he ran down the hall. “Karg, what’s going
on?” Nick called out. “Wait….”

As Nick sprinted
down the passage, trying to keep up, Karg hollered back over his shoulder.
“It’s Arya. She’s back, but her ship’s shot up bad.”

Nick stumbled
around Karg as they both entered the hangar bay in time to see a beat up
transport ship coming to rest on the floor. Carbon scoring on the hull and the
hiss of a coolant leak on the port side were clear indications the craft had
been in a battle. The transport’s door opened. A second later, Arya fell out
onto the deck. Her eyes glazed, she pushed her face up off of the deck a few
inches and then collapsed again to the floor.

“Sket!” Karg ran
over to Arya’s side. “Arya?” he yelled as he knelt beside her.

The hangar bay’s
access door zipped open and Captain Argos approached the two from behind as
they leaned over Arya’s motionless body. “How is she?”

Nick moved aside
to let Argos come in closer.

Karg was already
feeling for her pulse.  “She’s alive, Sir!”

The Captain
knelt down to check Arya’s injuries.  His brow furrowed deeply when he
noticed a small mark on the back of her neck, barely visible under her
hairline. His movements almost frantic, he brushed her hair aside, revealing a
dark green triangular mark on her neck amidst the lighter splotches that
covered her skin.

“It can’t be!”
Argos exclaimed in disbelief. “It’s not possible!” Argos stared down at the
unconscious Arya, his jaw tense, his eyes blazing.

Karg gasped and
jerked back at the sight of the mark on her neck.

Nick didn’t like
the sound of things. Worried that something was horribly wrong with Arya, he
struggled to see around the Captain. “What? What is it?” His gaze darted from
Karg to the Captain. “What’s wrong with her? Will she be alright?”

Argos picked up
the med-scanner he had brought with him from the bridge and held it near a
wound on Arya’s forearm. The display on the device began listing her genetic
traits.

Species:
Arisian.

Gender:
Female.

Eyes: Green.

Height:
Average.

Third
Continent Ancestry.

Strong
Frontal Lobe Development Expected.

Skin Pattern:
A-1.

No Apparent
Defects.

His brow
furrowed, Argos quickly punched a few parameters into the device’s on-screen
keyboard, and it responded by displaying a rectangular green box with the words
Genetic Match Verified
. Argos almost dropped the scanner as his arm fell
limp. “It’s true then. My God! It’s true!”

A faint sigh
from Arya refocused everyone’s attention.

Arya slowly
moved her head and then opened her eyes, immediately squinting from the harsh
glare of the bright overhead lights. She frowned as she peered up through her
half open eyelids at everyone leaning over her. “Why is everyone looking at me
like that?”

“Are you alright?”
the Captain asked in a softer tone than normal.

“Yeah, I’m fine.
What’s going on?” she asked as they stared down at her. When no one answered
right away, she became testy. “What the frek is wrong with everyone? I said I’m
fine.”

Nick still had
no idea what all the commotion was about. Was she going to be okay or not?

The Captain
lowered his head slightly, his eyes still wide with astonishment. “Arya?
Queen
Arya Nuraku of Aris?”

Nick looked over
at the Captain and back down at Arya again.
What the hell was going on? Had
everyone lost their mind?
Nick shook his head. “Hold on a minute. What do
you mean, Queen?” he asked, perplexed.

The look on
Arya’s face revealed the answer.

The Captain and
Karg got down on their knees and bowed their heads.

Karg glanced
over at Nick then reached over and pushed his one upright knee down to the
ground. “That’s the lost Queen of the Arisian Empire,” he whispered, motioning
for Nick to bow his head along with them.

Nick took a look
at the two of them bowing in respect and fumbled to assume their posture. He
snuck a quick peek at Arya, his mind racing to figure out what all this meant.

Without lifting
his gaze from the ground, Captain Argos addressed the newly discovered Queen
Arya. “We are your humble servants, your Highness. My ship is at your command.”

Arya sighed.
“Frek.” She shook her head, apparently displeased that her true identity had
been uncovered. With another sigh, she looked back up at the Captain kneeling
before her. “Thank you, Captain. But how did you know?” she asked with a
baffled look.

Argos replied
respectfully. “The Royal Mark, Your Highness.”

Nick mouthed the
words silently to himself as he knelt there.
Royal Mark?
He
peeked
over at Karg, who was staring hard at the floor in front of him, looking petrified.

Arya rolled her
eyes. “I feared the mark would give me away one day.”

Suddenly, the
room became uncomfortably silent. The awkwardness had Nick, and everyone else,
speechless. Seconds ticked by like hours until the Captain finally spoke.

 “Your Highness,
please allow me to escort you to medical,” Argos humbly requested.

As Arya began to
stand, Argos reached out to help her up. “I’m quite capable of making it there
on my own, Captain. Besides you have a ship to command.”

“Yes, but your
safety comes first, Your Highness.”

Conceding, Arya
stood up tall and straight, her royal upbringing now clearly apparent in her
graceful, stately posture. She looked at the three males standing before her.
“This cannot leave this room. Do you all understand? No one else must know. You
will continue to only refer to me as Arya.”

They all stared
at Arya. Nick’s mouth quivered with a question, but he managed to stifle it.

Argos nodded
with respect. “Yes, Your…I mean, yes, Arya. We understand.” The Captain peered
over at Karg and Nick with his commanding look. “Right?”

“Absolutely,
Sir,” Karg answered. His eyes were wide and filled with wonder, like a boy who
had just found out his mother was really a superhero.

Nick also
agreed. “Yes, Sir. Not a word, Sir.”

Argos offered his
arm so Arya could steady herself as he escorted her out of the bay. Nick and
Karg watched as they left. Argos looked almost stately as he walked, like he
was at a Royal Ball or something. Nick cocked his head in wonder and then
glanced over at Karg, who was now on his feet again.

Karg’s eyes
flared as they met Nick’s. “I’m so freked,” he said. 

Nick scrunched
his eyes as he assessed Karg’s demeanor.  The poor guy looked like he’d
just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“The things I
have said in front of her…
to
her. I’m doomed.” Karg shook his head in
distress. “I’m just doomed.”

Nick himself was
still stunned by the fact that Arya was actually some lost Queen.  He
could only imagine what Karg was feeling.  Still, it was difficult to find
words that would make Karg feel better. “Uh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s still
Arya, right? What is the
Royal Mark,
anyway? Are you talking about that
spot on her neck?”

“The Royal Mark
is hereditary. Only the Royal Family bears the mark.”

Nick puzzled over
the latest events. “I don’t understand. If she’s a Queen, how did she keep it a
secret? And for that matter,
why
would she?”

Karg walked over
to a small metal crate positioned off to the side of the hangar bay and sat
down. The crate creaked and groaned under his massive weight. “She has good
reason to keep it a secret. The way I understand it, when the Mok’tu invaded
Aris, their Queen was killed. Naturally, the power then fell to the next in
line for the throne, Princess Arya, but she was missing in the chaos that
ensued. Many people continued to hold out hope that she was still alive
somewhere, but no signs of her survival ever surfaced. Eventually, everyone
assumed she had died in the attack, along with Queen Amorosa. If the Mok’tu
knew she was still alive, they would hunt her down. They would want to make an
example of her to keep the Arisian people broken and without hope. Not that
there
is
a lot of hope for the survivors these days. I suppose there’s
not much of an Empire left for her to rule over anymore. Millions dead, and her
planet enslaved and all.”

“But how did she
end up here?” Nick wanted to know.

“We picked up
her life pod several sectors away from Aris, near the small moon of a barren
planet. She said she was a refugee that tried to escape the war on a freighter.
We never had any idea who she really was. She gave us no indication of her true
identity. Since then she has been a huge help in organizing the Resistance. Who
would have guessed
she
was the Queen?” Karg shook his mighty head as he
stared at the floor in thought. “I should have seen it in her gracefulness.
Even for an Arisian she had an unusual elegance about her. How could I have
been so blind?”

“Wait a minute.
Why didn’t anyone recognize her? Somebody should’ve known she was the Queen.”

“The heirs to
the throne are not allowed to be seen in public. It would be…disrespectful.
They stay sequestered in the Royal Palace until they take the throne,” Karg
explained. He gave Nick a long look then said, “Sometimes I forget that you are
not from around here.”

If Nick wasn’t
so curious about Arya and this new Queen business, he would have taken Karg’s
last remark as a compliment. But he had too many questions now to even think
about how quickly Karg had integrated him into their team. Arya hadn’t said
much about her people. In fact, she seemed to avoid the subject most of the
time. Nick had assumed it was just too painful for her to discuss, and left it
at that. But now…now he knew better.

“What else do
you know about the Arisians?” he asked Karg.

 “Only that
the Arisians and their Queen are highly regarded, even among my people. They
are known for their great wisdom and compassion. I’ve never actually been to
their home planet, but I hear it’s beautiful.” Karg paused, looking off into
thin air as if dreaming of the Aris he had heard so much about. After a moment,
he glanced back at Nick. “The Arisians were the ones that saved many of my
people before the Mok’tu arrived. I was aboard one of the last Arisian
freighters to escape. They could have just run, but instead they stayed to help
us.”

“They sound like
a wonderful people. I hope we both get to see Aris someday.”

Karg seemed
willing to talk as long as Nick was willing to listen. And Nick was definitely
willing to listen. The two talked until late in the evening, Nick learning
everything he could about the Arisians and also Karg’s world, before finally
heading back to his quarters for some much needed rest. But Nick was doubtful
he would get much sleep after the events of the day.  Too much was happening
too fast. His brain couldn’t keep up. He’d seen more action in his short time
in space than his entire lifetime on earth.  It seemed weird now. Earth
seemed so far away, so long ago. He’d adapted so quickly to this environment.
It was amazing really. He longed to know more about these alien races, was
determined to help, but still longed to be home in his comfortable bed,
daydreaming about what it would be like to travel into deep space, to discover
what lay beyond.