Princess Defne waited for a special someone, handsome, bold, and clever… yet not so handsome that he loved only his own reflection, so bold he trusted no other, nor so clever as to be useless to her.

The grand vizier held her prisoner in a high tower in her father the sultan’s city of colorful domes on the great river. Street dogs emboldened by milky white aslan sütü whispered that the grand vizier plotted to murder the sultan, who was many leagues away on campaign. The traitorous viper would wed the princess and seize the throne. She would then fall by dreadful mishap from her solitary tower window. All of this only waited upon the moon that would bring her to womanhood.

Those same raki-addled street dogs claimed, however, that Princess Defne was not the fool the grand vizier took her to be. Each month, she would demand a new gown of the finest silk. Each month, the royal dressmakers would outdo themselves, delivering a flowing garment emblazoned with red tulips. The princess would reject the masterpiece, and, over the following days, rent it to rags, burn it, and scatter the ashes from that same solitary window.

It was by şans, or feckless chance, that one day a lone street dog who thought himself a fox noticed silky cinders falling upon his black, untamed locks. Zeki looked up to see the princess gazing forlornly from her guarded tower, her lips downturned in reflection of her sorrows yet not so saddened as to extinguish the dazzling flame behind those almond-shaped eyes. In an instant he lost all purpose in life but one: to turn her expression to joy. It would be so, he pledged, but a ragged boy of no means must have funds and a plan.

Before an hour had passed, Zeki’s gaze singled out a man with gems on every finger. It was not the rings, however, but the fabulous dagger tucked in his belt that drew Zeki’s attention. Its sheath bore an emerald as large as a goose egg! With such wealth, Zeki imagined he might pay ransom for the princess and live with her in luxury.

As every street fox knew, a prize like that belonged to the craftiest thief. 

Approaching the wealthy man, Zeki pointed to a tent and promised him he would find beyond its flaps no fewer than thirty sultry beauties. “A single coin of silver will reveal to you a sweetness you’ve never known!” Speaking at twice the speed of the man’s ability to think, he fashioned startling images of the delights within that tent. The man’s head spun round and round and nearly twisted off, and by the time he thought to ask how a street wastrel knew of such things, Zeki was gone, fabulous dagger in hand.

The city of colorful domes on the river was one of enlightenment and harmony but also home to many pairs of eyes. A stranger who smelled of onions and yesterday’s patlican happened to witness Zeki’s triumph. Moments later, the stranger fell upon Zeki in an alleyway. He wrapped a powerful arm about the youth’s throat and claimed his sparkling prize. The stranger unsheathed the dagger and, with the merest flick, released a pearl of blood from Zeki’s ear. 

Yellow teeth flashed from beneath a long black beard. “Fatherless cur! A dagger will get you into trouble, but it will seldom get you out. Trust your heart and your head. Let a master thief’s words serve as both wisdom and warning, and may I see you again never!” 

Zeki called after the master thief, hurling an idiom employed by his fellow street dogs: “Donkey balls!” The man laughed loudly as he and the fabulous dagger turned a corner, forever gone.

Most days, Zeki was a finder. Gifted with wile and dim regard for laws, he was the one all people sought out sooner or later, when they needed something. Payment was fair, and questions were few.

Zeki was often summoned to the home of the man he called old fool, to bring him necessities and many heavy skins of cheap wine. The kind dodderer was, in fact, a conjurer of items from realms unreachable by land or sea. He had many callers, who traded news of the city in exchange for his unusual creations. Among these, it was said, were potions and poultices to summon destiny.

“You look in need of magic and smell in need of soap and water.” The man tried to sound disdainful, but mischief ruled his eyes, and Zeki sensed himself out-foxed.

Quickly surmising that guile was useless against such a man, Zeki resorted to the only tactic remaining. He told the truth. “The princess is in danger!”

“Indeed, a boar-headed girl on the edge of womanhood, somehow trapped by the leering coward who the… ayem… brave, handsome sultan chose to protect the city in his absence.” 

Zeki watched as the old fool rummaged among heaps of oddities strewn across a chipped mosaic tabletop. From amid collections of scrolls, too many snuff boxes, jars of… something, and stacks of wagering tiles, he found a leather pouch stuffed with small stones. 

They were not stones.

“When I was a child,” the old fool said, “I would feast upon sweet, spicey macun, much to my father’s displeasure. I hoped my candies would taste as wonderful as macun, but… ah… that is not the case. I added beeswax to give each one a telltale shape, but that… ayem… didn’t turn out too well either.” He opened the pouch to reveal formless lumps of colorful swirls.  

The old fool then ceremoniously turned to regard his face in a finely polished shield hung upon his wall to seek order in the few strands of wild hair left upon his scalp and chin. “In any case, the sweets do what I made them to do. I would savor them, but alas, my eyes fail me now and my spine stiffens, so here I remain while younger adventurers take the risks…”

He turned back just in time to see Zeki’s back disappearing out his door.

Feeling a dangerous rush of cleverness and luck, Zeki found the guarded entrance to the tower where the princess was being held. He reached into the old fool’s pouch of candies and pulled out a light brown one covered in what he took to be lint. It tasted of poorly spiced camel spit. Instantly, keen-edged scimitars of pain and bliss pierced his youthful flesh. His muscles quaked, and braziers toasted his stomach. In a nearby water trough, he spied his own reflection, bending and changing, though the water itself never rippled.

Zeki tried to cry out, shocking himself instead with a tremendous howl.

The guards had only ever seen pictures in old scrolls. Blood-chilling images showed the beasts to be ravenous and merciless, and thus the guards fled in fear. They would keep going. Having abandoned their posts, their heads would roll if they ever returned to the city. 

The captain of the guard stood fast in the entrance of the tower, raising his blade to the gray wolf who unaccountably stood staring back at him. “Misborn mongrel! For daring to enter this tower, I’ll have you in pieces on a platter for the grand vizier’s dinner!” The captain’s bluster earned him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view his own entrails. Wolf Zeki licked his chops, finding the taste of soldier not at all disagreeable.

He had won, but he quickly surmised he couldn’t undo the spell. He hurried up the spiral steps of the tower, coming to the door to what must be the princess’ apartment. He scratched with his paw upon the wood, and Princess Defne opened her door and looked upon his powerful form. Wolf Zeki tried but couldn’t make himself understood, reduced as he was to issuing low, non-threatening whimpers and meekly presenting his head in supplication.

“You’re no ordinary wolf or I would be inside you looking out,” Princess Defne said as she led him into her rooms. “An enchantment? It would appear as though the rescuer I wished for himself needs rescuing.” 

The princess moved quickly to help him even as they saw the grand vizier crossing the courtyard below. “I come for you, Princess!” he cried in a lusty tone. 

Wolf Zeki let out a fearful yelp. 

“Here,” the princess said, handing Wolf Zeki a bejeweled goblet of water. “You need merely drink pure water from the Lady Medusa to undo any spell you cast upon yourself.”

Wolf Zeki used his lupine tongue to lap from the cup and was himself, Zeki, again. “Blessings be upon you. I was worried I would live my life on four paws.”

She regarded the ragged youth now before her. “Perhaps that would be an improvement. Now that you are again your pungent self, how do you propose we escape this tower?”

Holding out his pouch, which was restored to him along with his beggarly garments, he said, “I obtained these candies from a conjurer I know.”

Princess Defne regarded the brightly colored lumps. “They seem familiar, though whoever made them was clearly better at the art of magic than at the confectionary arts.”

They had no time to consider this. Footfalls were sounding upon the steps below and rising quickly.

“The grand vizier! Your father was a fool to have left him in charge.”

“My father is not the fool you take him for.”

“Perhaps. For now, which candy to use?”

Princess Defne plucked a blue-gray lump and carefully touched it with the tip of her tongue. Without explanation, she pronounced: “Elephant. Not for the task at hand.” A clustered lump she identified as a swarm of angry bees. “Perhaps another time…” Another. “Caracal? Lovely. We’ll save this one.” She tucked the candy into the folds of her garment and chose a speckled one instead. “This!”

“What is it?” He tried to ask, choking on the final words as she jammed the candy down his throat. Zeki’s bones protested and snapped as his body reshaped itself into a great centipede. Princess Defne removed her royal diadem and gathered a few belongings, including walking boots and a tiny golden lantern. She took hold of Centipede Zeki’s new armored sections, and shouted, “What are you waiting for? Climb!”

Out the window and down they went. Centipede or lusty young man, her delicate fingers and toes felt wondrous tucked into the soft spaces between his armored plates.

“We must find Father,” Princess Defne proclaimed as they reached the base of the tower and checked to see that they were alone. An enormous eagle took long turns in the blue sky overhead.

Centipede Zeki raised his front sections and, using tiny, hooked limbs, grabbed hold of the waterskin she carried. After a single deep draft, he was himself again. 

“No one can stand against a man who has been a wolf and a centipede in the same morning! I will be a blade for your father the sultan!”

“Fool! You drank directly from the skin instead of using a cup. That water is no longer pure. If we are to use more of the magic candies, and I think you’ll agree this is likely, we’ll need more of the Medusa’s water!”

“Where do we obtain such water?”

“From the Medusa, idiot!”

A group of armed men appeared across the square. 

The two ran through alleys and into the main bazaar, jumping over the true caliphs of the city, who barely looked up from their stolen fish dinners. Princess Defne liberated a virgin wineskin as the merchant bartered passionately with an obstinate customer.

“You are a fine street cat, Princess, and I will be a blade for your father the sultan!” Zeki cried, kicking his foot against a stack of large earthenware jars. These came down in a confusion of clay, olives, and oil, sending their pursuers sliding into hopeless disarray. The sight of burly men unable to stand on the slickened street gladdened Zeki’s spirit so, he at first failed to notice the one swordsman who managed to avoid the treacherous mess.

The single eunuch, largest of the foul bunch, raised an immense sword above his head. It was such a blade as Zeki had never seen. As the man was still some distance behind them, Zeki indulged his worst inclinations, calling out, “Clearly, you are a lazy fighter, o fat one, as you would spare but a single downward slash to divide my right from my left. You seek to hurry the job before your kabab gets cold!”

Not an infinitesimal of humor sounded in the eunuch’s growled reply.

“This way!” Princess Defne ordered, still clutching her useless little lantern through streets made bright by the afternoon sun.

More turns took them through crowds of sour bodies and past carts heavily laden with ripe pomegranates, wily street cats who carried themselves as the true masters of the city, packets of exquisite teas said to have crossed deserts and seas, and rings of changeable sultanate gems, now umber, now lavender. They came at last to a gated entrance. Princess Defne barely touched the heavy lock, turning one section one way and carefully measuring an opposite turn on the other. The rusted shank clicked and squealed open, and they were inside. She stopped him from claiming a lit torch at the entrance, instead holding up her inadequate golden lantern against the dark unknown ahead.

With the hand not wielding his enormous kilij, the eunuch grabbed a torch from an iron rack. He slouched towards them, moving with determination, sword in hand and many more thirsty weapons upon the belt jostling about his wide waist. The iron toes and heels of his boots clacked menacingly as he pounded his feet towards them.

The two fugitives ran headlong down the winding steps, doing all they could not to slip on the tread-polished stones. Their pursuer was gaining on them, a grim, low laugh marking his progress.

“Surrender now, and I will remove both your heads with one quick blow! It will be painless. None of my victims has ever complained.” It was a bombastic bluff, as he clearly needed to return the princess alive. The eunuch might, however, take his sadistic pleasures out on both of them.

At last, they reached a landing that opened through an archway into the palace cistern. The eunuch was mere steps behind them.

The princess raised her lantern and puffed out her chest in bluster, a motion which, even under the dire circumstances, made the heart in Zeki’s own chest beat faster. “I am Defne, first daughter to the sultan!” she declared. “You will stand down!”

The eunuch swung his sword arm away and then reversed its course like a farmer scything wheat. Princess Defne caught the blow from the back of his fist, dropping her little golden lantern and wheeling off into the shadows with a dumbfounded yelp.

The eunuch raised his own torch and advanced on Zeki. The street fox dodged well but soon became winded. As fickle şans would have it, his much larger attacker forced Zeki back until he hung awkwardly at the edge of the water. He felt himself losing his balance and reached out for his attacker’s arm, or at least the end of his torch. Instead, the eunuch bellowed a great laugh and watched Zeki fall into the cold, black waters.

“Drown, sewer rat! You have found your grave,” the eunuch taunted, even as Zeki thrashed about trying to learn to swim for the first time in fifteen dry years. 

The eunuch leaned forward, holding out his torch and jabbing with the point of his kilij. “The rat needs help to drown, I think. Hahaha!”

Zeki stared into the grimly delighted face of his killer, finding no trace of mercy. The man’s bloated and pocked features were to be his last vision in this life. “Die, sewer rat. Do not make me late for my dinner meal or IIIIIIIIII—”

The eunuch’s phlegmy voice arced above and past Zeki, who was frantically trying to find a stroke that would keep his head above the chill waters. The big man fell bodily into the cistern’s depths, torch, kilij, heavy weapons belt, iron-tipped boots, and all. A furious storm of bubbles marked the spot where he sank.

Little remained of the light, only what the small golden lantern could spare. Fortunately, it had not gone out when the eunuch so easily brushed Princess Defne aside. To everyone’s surprise, not least of all the eunuch’s, her slight frame had borne enough weight to send the eunuch to his end when propelled by the full force of an angry princess aiming herself at a scoundrel’s undefended backside.

Princess Defne found the eunuch’s dead torch floating near the water’s stony edge and used it to reach out to her foundering rescuer.

Zeki began to thank her, though the effort chilled him more than his drenched clothes.

Princess Defne raised a hand in shield fashion. “A blade with goat pellets for brains is a dead blade. I have seen too many and need to meet no more.”

They were safe. And they were in an enormous space totally black but for a single point of light guttering with plucky determination.

Before them lay a mesh of narrow stone walkways, some broken with age and erosion. How large a space they stood in they could only guess, for Princess Defne’s golden lantern acted confused, glowing brightly then dimming then brightening again once it faced a new direction. “It’s as if something is distracting my golden lantern,” she said.

The cistern had saved them from their pursuers but now presented its own dangers. It was said that more than one person seeking refuge had never found his way out again. 

“The sun stood at my right shoulder where we entered. The stairs wheeled two-and-a-half times. So, north is,” he pointed an uncertain finger, “there.”

“North to the Medusa!”

Zeki did not like the sound of that, but there was little else to do but follow his slender guide along the walkways. Time and again, they had to jump over a break in the stones beneath their feet, and once they had to go back and pick out an alternate route, hoping their sense of direction had not drowned in the dark waters.

And they found the fearsome lady, thrice-condemned. First, Medusa angered a goddess who envied her beauty and so cursed Medusa into something so heinous the mere sight of her turned the beholder to stone. Next, the conquest-minded Romans fixed her likeness on a great stone and placed it in one of their ugly temples to frighten enemies. The sultans beat back the Romans and sacked their temples, only to impart a final indignity. Never ones to waste good columns and cool stones, they brought the bits to this place as part of the palace cistern. The people of the city of colorful domes on the river, however, did not respect foreign idols. They set poor Medusa’s head down below in the dark, to chill the waters, upside down.

From the shadows stepped a calico Angora, who stretched her neck irreverently, lapping up a cool drink under the head’s inverted gaze.

“There is magic here still.” In a whisper, she begged the snake-haired Medusa to protect them as she filled the purloined wineskin with fresh water. She added a prayer to the Great Wielder of Şans to someday break the curse and restore Medusa to life and beauty.

The princess then sternly admonished Zeki, “Whether you use cupped hands or spray from skin to throat, do not taint this water with your lips, o street dog. Now let us find our way out of here.”

It was a simple thing to say. The cistern, she well knew, extended under half the palace and far beneath the kitchens and guards’ barracks. It was as large as a falcon’s hunting field. 

Princess Defne shifted about nervously. She set off in one direction only to recognize her error and retrace her steps, searching for the opening that would lead them back to sunlight.

“The legend says, ‘Medusa shows the steps, her face to three thick pillars plus four left, and six more in Osman’s necklace…’” Her finger jabbed into the darkness, making a valiant effort to sew a map into the void. “Osman’s necklace forms a curving line. But… as the cartwheel turns or as the ancients built their water wheel?” It was an undecided question among scholars who collected fat stipends while pouring over such lore.

Zeki stood still, the calico rubbing her body against one leg. That leg shivered within his wet garments, but not so the other leg. The street fox smiled. “A vision reaches me,” he proclaimed. He took her by the wrist and, none too gently, for he was owned by a delicious whimsy, led her across a diagonal pathway to the broad rim of the cistern.

Princess Defne raised her feeble golden lantern, revealing an archway. Beyond, a stairwell sighed the warm promise of a passage back to the outside world. Trespassers in the cistern might only have sensed this non-stop current by standing in place as Zeki had done through the meanest of şans.

In the tiny orb of light from her lantern, Zeki grinned at Princess Defne’s scowling face. “Follow me, Princess.” They began their ascent. She had no choice but to stay within inches of him lest she stumble on the uneven stone steps.

“Donkey balls,” she mumbled.

The princess sent a note to the palace via an easily charmed beggar, urging the guards to dredge the cistern lest the dead eunuch foul the palace’s water supply. Then they hurried on, reaching the city walls by nightfall, and struck out for the sultan’s camp. It would be a lengthy journey. 

“How will we ever find him?”

Princess Defne held aloft her tiny golden lantern. “Trust in magic, street dog.” She slowly spun about on delicate feet inside sturdy boots until her marvelous golden lantern found its way and flared in the gloaming. “There. Now it knows its task. We will travel where it leads!”

Three days later, they joined a caravan heading in the right direction. They prepared a clever story for the ras of the caravan, a lanky, red-eyed man never without a leather flask of raki. 

The princess said, “We are brother and sister, separated from our wealthy parents, who are currently purchasing a ruby mine. I am Iyla. My brother Damir – who has been mute since a childhood fishing accident – and I are… ayem… troubadours. Our instruments were stolen… by pirates… while we were working… on the Pasha’s barge… and… ah… we…” Her words tumbled against the stone wall that was the face of the caravan ras.

The world-weary man held up one hand. “I have four troubadours,” he said with no particular expression in his voice, “two spice merchants traveling with no spice, a plethora of aging soothsayers, or so the ladies call themselves, and a holy man who cannot seem to recall which deity he obeys.”

“We also perform animal illusions!” Zeki blurted out.

“I don’t know this one, but I am pleased to learn you are cured of your muteness.”

“We have coins,” Princess Defne added, hastily producing a few akçe.

The ras took the silver, tucking it instantly into his vest. “Welcome to my humble caravan of camels, gamblers, scoundrels, and wanderers. All I ask is that you share in the work and forget any faces you see on this road.”

The coins were not enough. Not wishing to be left alone to face bandits, they earned their passage by working, telling stories, singing, and employing one more skill. 

In the evenings, sunbaked travelers dug deep into their purses for coins to see a lovely girl dance with a fearsome caracal by the waters of the oasis. What a spectacle to behold: a charming maiden of flawless face and almond eyes singing to the desert lynx in a circle of starlit tents! The creature sat on its powerful haunches, eyes narrowed in contentment. The audience even witnessed the girl bestowing a kiss upon the large cat’s expressive, tufted ears. Let all storytellers take note: caracals can be made to purr and to trill!

It was a long, dry journey, and both resorted to drinking the Medusa’s water. In the end, they traded most of the remaining charmed candy lumps for food and fresh garments, the princess including strict warnings as to the nature of the unusual treats.

At last, they parted from the caravan ras, who offered a simple blessing: “May şans favor you, but if she does not, keep your stories simple and your boots in good repair.”

After walking for three long days and nights, they reached the sultan’s camp and rushed towards his splendid large tent. Sentries recognized the princess, though they regarded her raggedy companion with some suspicion. Many eyes watched them. The princess noticed the colors they bore were not from her father’s personal unit. The colors were, however, disconcertingly familiar.

“We are walking into a trap,” Zeki whispered.

“Then we must show the trapper the error of trapping a street cat and a street fox… together,” she replied. Despite the danger, he liked the way she said the word.

Two armed sentries unfamiliar to the princess stood by the flap of the sultan’s tent. They pulled it open.

“Caravans are so slow. I have been waiting for you,” came the expected voice from within. The grand vizier was there, holding a wicked blade to the throat of Princess Defne’s father. 

Princess Defne refused to show fear. “Traitor! You have set your fate. Whichever of us leaves this tent alive rules.”

“Marry me!” demanded the grand vizier. “We will rule your late father’s sultanate together.” He snickered at the sultan and cast him down to a waiting mound of pillows. The old man lay prone, wallowing but showing no fear.

“But of course I will marry you, o ancient one, and you shall find my wedding gift between your ribs!”

Zeki drew forth the pouch. Out tumbled the last three candies: a purple-and-white swirl, a shiny golden nugget, and a fuzzy brown one. Princess Defne took a piece then told Zeki, “You take this one,” but gnarled, greedy fingers plucked it first.

The grand vizier raised the stolen treat to his thin-lipped mouth and transformed. Suddenly standing before them was a slobbering brown bear, many times larger than Princess Defne and Zeki combined. 

“So, it is true! You have magic! What a marvel!” the man-bear snarled through his protruding muzzle. “You have increased my strength and given me fierce weapons with which to fight!” So saying, he tossed aside his wicked blade so that he might enjoy using his new wicked claws.

Princess Defne popped her candy into her mouth and became a magnificent sword of Damascene steel with the face of a maiden on its golden hilt. She flew about the tent on currents of air, deftly slashing to and fro.

Zeki swallowed the final candy… and became a large, rather befuddled purple heron.

Sword Defne was formidable in close combat, seeking out any missteps and thrusting liberally to keep her opponent off-balance, but Bear Vizier was a seasoned fighter. He easily swatted away the flying girl-sword. The pair clashed again and again while Purple Heron Zeki looked on, flaring his head crest, unsure whether this presented an empty threat or an invitation to mate.

“You are a weak and foolish lecher!” Defne taunted.

“I was! Now, I could kill ten men at once!”

Zeki’s feathered head filled with questions his beak could not articulate. How can I help her? What whim of magic allows both of them to speak while my words are lost to me?

Again, Defne swung true, but this time the grand vizier slashed his wicked claws with such ferocity the blow sent Defne spinning tip over pommel. He grabbed her by the hilt, gagging her mouth with one wicked claw.

“Know your death, Princess. I will use you to kill your father then bring you to the weapon master’s forge and melt you into spoons. I will tell the people we wed and that your father named me his rightful heir.” Bear Vizier brandished Sword Defne with relish and cast a cruel glance at the sultan. “Let your daughter deliver your fate, fool!”

At last freed from fear that Defne in her exuberance would sever his lovely striped neck, Zeki saw his chance to act. He dashed into the fight! 

Zeki’s sharp beak pecked the grand vizier’s burly paw. The assault drew blood and a scream, but unsurprisingly, did not cause him to drop the girl-sword. Zeki followed through on the stratagem filling his fowl brain. He proved two things for the sake of generations of storytellers to come. First, a bear has the same weak spot as a grand vizier; and second, purple herons do not fight nicely but rather with their heart and especially with their head!

Zeki swung his sleek neck, making his beak into a dagger to skewer the grand vizier’s lewdly flopping genitals. Man or bear, he doubled over in anguish, and Zeki aimed another vicious peck at the grand vizier’s wounded paw. 

Bear Vizier dropped Sword Defne. Free again, she swung her blade body so fast and true that the very air sang out a note higher than any achieved by the most celebrated minstrel. The grand vizier’s head made a satisfying wump as it landed on her father’s splendid damask rug. This was, of course, ruined, but Bear Vizier’s furry hide would make an acceptable replacement.

She spat out her candy and within moments was herself again. Princess Defne looked to Zeki. “Didn’t I mention that you don’t have to swallow the whole candy?”

Stuck in the form of a morose purple heron, he shook his head. No, she hadn’t.

“We’re out of the Medusa’s water,” Princess Defne said.

Zeki’s heart sank.

Princess Defne found her golden lantern nearby, ready to serve. Its meager flame flowered into brilliance, bringing the sultan into Zeki’s full view. Though he had never met the sultan before, he knew this face. The lines, the sparse, bedraggled hair, the mischief about the eyes.

Here indeed was the old fool of a conjurer. He and the sultan were one and the same.

“So, this… ayem… donkey balls failed a test of loyalty,” the sultan said, his eyes regarding the unmoving bits of his former grand vizier. “Still… ayem… a beloved daughter has passed her test… ah… with skill and style.”

What capricious şans is this? Zeki wondered. He parsed what his senses told him. He’d been used by father and daughter alike. Either could have rescued themselves but had chosen to make sport of the danger. They’d made sport of Zeki… for Zeki was precisely the fool they’d taken him for.  

“Father, we must return to your city of colorful domes on the river. You have much to attend. Meanwhile, I ask you to grant my hand in marriage to Zeki… two or three spring times hence.

Zeki’s head felt like feathers inside as well as out, but his heart refused to well up in anger. Instead, he felt… wanted. Used perhaps, but wanted. For the first time in his life, Zeki would be part of something wonderful, a family.

Princess Defne continued, “For now, we must visit the Lady Medusa with haste and beg her for more of her enchanted water.” 

The sultan pulled from his fine clothes a single candy. “This will get you there quickly. I can attest its spell works perfectly, though I still find the flavor a touch musty. Here,” he said, handing the sweet to his daughter. “This one is my last. How I would love to see the faces of my people when a giant eagle carries a silly purple heron back to the palace!” 

“We are off, dear Father.” Princess Defne winked at Zeki. “Unless… oh, no. I prayed that Medusa be restored to flesh and beauty. I hope the Great Wielder of Şans will wait until after I have my brave street fox restored to me.”

“I don’t know, daughter. Perhaps I should order a nest built in the palace.” Sultan and princess shared a laugh.

Flapping his delicate wings and snapping his wordless beak, Purple Heron Zeki fervently hoped his heart’s new delight and his future father-in-law were joking.

###

       So, you like tales of magic and mayhem, eh? May I humbly suggest you check out Skinner -- A Love Story...

https://chrisrikerauthor.com/news/novels/skinners-a-love-story

 

Details

Published: 30 July 2025

 

Shoulda been a cowboy

Ride my mustang in the sun

Chasing strays

And barroom babes

Out where my face is known to none

Shoulda been a cowboy

 

Dreamed I’d be a sailor

On an endless sea of blue

Rigging sails

Great singing whales

Living free like we all should do

Oh, to be a sailor

 

No time for fantasizin’

I got promises to keep

Chained to bills

Strong as steel

This job’ll be the death of me

…I shoulda been a cowboy

 

Maybe an explorer

See what no one’s ever seen

Mountains steep

Or caverns deep

Learn how living life really feels

Let me go exploring

 

Space man blasting off to Mars

Or fly boy bravely winning wars

Hunt a mighty T-Rex down

Or be a goddam circus clown

I got to do more living 

Now 

Before I go

I ache to make a noise

Stir up this old show

…I shoulda been a cowboy

 

Shoulda been a cowboy

Ride my mustang in the sun

Chasing strays

And barroom babes

Out where my face is known to none

Shoulda been a cowboy

 

Hell, I’ll be a cowboy

Drive my mustang in the sun

Let my worries fade

While getting laid

Out where my face is known to none

Born to be a cowboy!

Details

Published: 11 July 2025

 

 

    

     Axton’s last thoughts were She’s safe. He was a winner born to lose, yet, somehow, even at times like this, when he was dying in great pain, hope survived. To distract himself from the aching loneliness and from the fallen beam pinning him amid the smoke and ravenous flames, he concentrated on the lovely dulcimer until everything went as dark as the bottom of a bowl of black bean soup.

     That was ELEVEN.

     TWELVE found Axton killing five men aboard a Luna shuttle, bare-handed, so as not to endanger Tilde with weapons fire. His opponents imposed no such restrictions upon themselves. Before he killed them, they fired freely, crippling most of the ship’s controls and piercing the reactor coolant system. The cabin was filling with toxic gas, and only one space suit still functioned. Tilde fought him, but he got her into the suit somehow. With a kiss, he closed the visor and strapped her in. Their song was playing on the comms bittersweet and reflectively lyrical. Of course it was. Axton had to hold on. It took all his training, all his focus, but he managed to wrestle the ship into a rough but survivable landing near a friendly complex before everything turned licorice black.

     SIXTEEN and SEVENTEEN, Axton saved Tilde but died by poisoned Longmorn Single Malt and tiger respectively, while Joni strummed her dulcimer. No matter how hard he tried, he could not survive. It was as if something were actively working against him. His training told him that most of his situations were fifty-fifty odds, yet somehow things always went the wrong way.

     TWENTY-SEVEN.

     Axton rushed through the pouring rain and across the motel parking lot to Room 8, where she’d be waiting. He was alert, in the moment. It wouldn’t be like last time. This time, everything would go perfectly. Tilde’s curves, her scented hair, the small of her back, all this would be his and his alone!

     He unlocked the door and slipped inside, dripping wet. Joni was playing on the sound system, something plucky from her Blue album. It was perfect.

     Tilde was waiting in the bed, nude, her anticipation on dual display through the thin sheet.

     The door burst open behind him, and in rushed a man in a loud sports coat. In his right hand, he held a Kimber 2K11 9mm with extended magazine, giving it 20 rounds. “Caught you, asshole! Thought you’d poke my wife, eh? You’ll have to be smarter than that!”

     “You let him follow you? You didn’t even lock the door? Jesus, Axton! We’re on deadline. Oh, just shoot him, Rusty.”

     The man in the loud sportscoat fired one shot, striking Axton in the chest.

     Everything went black as pan-seared bass forgotten on the stove.

     TWENTY-SEVEN-β.

     Axton rushed through the pouring rain and across the motel parking lot to Room 8, where she’d be waiting. He was alert, in the moment. It wouldn’t be like last time. This time, everything would go perfectly. The voluptuous Tilde would be his and his alone!

     He checked around the lot. By the light of the red neon Passion Pit Motor Lodge sign, he could see a man sitting in a parked car. The engine was off; he was just sitting, scanning the area. Axton made his movements casual, walking past Room 8 and into the breezeway. He paced in a tiny circle for twenty minutes, though the thought of Tilde burned in his mind and in his loins. At last, he decided to try again. Looking around, he saw that the car where the man had been was empty. There was no one else around, so he made his way to Room 8.

     Axton unlocked the door and slipped inside, dripping wet, locking the door behind him. Joni was playing on the sound system, All I Want from her Blue album, her foray into the dulcimer. Everything was perfect.

     Tilde was there under a sheet which barely covered her dual excitement. Wait, she wasn’t excited for him. She said nothing, but Axton sensed that her twin points stemmed not from sensual arousal, but from –

     “Bang,” the man in the loud sports coat said, emerging from the bathroom with gun in hand – a Kimber 2K11 9mm with extended magazine, giving it 20 rounds. Serious killing power.  

     Tilde was pissed at Axton. “You took too long. I thought it was you and let him in,” Tilde said, all trace of nerves vanishing from her voice.

     “So, just for fun, I’m going to put these cuffs on you and ravage Tilde while you watch, buddy. You don’t mind, do you?”

     Axton sized up the situation. He had no gun. Rusty had him covered. He held out his hands to allow Rusty to slip the cuffs on.

     “You’d like that, for me to get close and then fumble with my hands while you grab my gun. You put them on him.” Rusty motioned with the pistol for Tilde to do the honors. She slipped out of the sheets nude as the day she was born, her perfect figure highlighted in the red neon of the motel sign. Rusty let out a low wolf whistle.

     And then a gurgling scream.

     In the split second it took Rusty to compare the color of rug and drapes, Axton swung his arm slapping the pistol from Rusty’s hand and sending it onto the bed. Axton moved swiftly behind Rusty and, using both hands, gave the man’s head a violent jerk to the right. The snap was audible. Rusty and his loud sports coat fell to the stained motel room carpet.

     Axton moved to embrace Tilde. Like Joni’s song, he was overcome with loneliness and a desire to connect with someone.

     Tilde pushed him away. “Don’t hug me, you’re soaked. Anyway, snapping a guy’s neck in front of me is not the aphrodisiac you obviously think it is.”

     “That’s what the music is for.” Something stirred in the red-tinged shadows at their feet. “I could have a partner – probably do have a partner!” the dead Rusty said, looking up from the floor with his head tilted at an impossible angle. “The other bad guy could be breaking down that door right now.”

     “He’s right, Axton. There’s no time for fooling around. You’re picking up on the fine details but missing obvious things. The priority here is to get me to safety.”

     Rusty was on his feet, having retrieved the pistol from the bed. “It’s the romance scenario. It’s distracting him,” he said.

     Tilde was incredulous. “You want to tell that to our client? Her order said: a fighter and a lover. By the way, that’s cheating. You’re dead.”

     Rusty was getting worked up. His head lolled from side to side on the broken spindle of his neck as he spoke. “All I’m saying is he should have picked up the gun after he killed me.”

     “No. We’ve been through this. Axton doesn’t use guns unless he has to. They’re too hard to explain to police or airport security.”

     Folding her arms across a perfect Casabaesque pair, Tilde said, “You look ridiculous standing around with a broken neck.”

     “It’s only sprained. Like any decent thug, I knew to lean into the twist, protect the neck.”

     “It looks broken to me,” Axton said defensively. 

     “Don’t argue,” Rusty’s voice took on an edge of anger. To Tilde, he said, “I think we’ve got as much as we’re going to get out of Sleazy Motel Scenario. We’ll move on… after we eat. Jesus, Teetee, we blew off lunch.”

     “We’re on deadline,” Tilde said. Rusty, his head lolling to one side, pouted. “Fine. We’ll work while we eat. Conflicting priorities has to be what’s defeating his higher heuristics. Axton should be setting the priorities. I told you, this is where the man is better than the machine. This is why we’re using Axton and not some cheap synthbot. Fine, we’ll trace it. Go ahead and power down the scenario.”

     Another failure on the brink of victory. Axton knew how the toast felt when an idiot dropped it. Would it always be this way?

     Rusty said, “The auto-save is faster,” and pulled the trigger.

     His senses fell into a bottomless cask of… of… well, it was black, anyway.

     THIRTY-FOUR-Γ. Inconclusive proof that Tilde ultimately made it to safety, but the Tilde Avatar did register an intense orgasm during intercourse with Axton the very instant he killed the assassin. Similar results on THIRTY-FOUR-Δ and THIRTY-FOUR-Ε. In each case, Axton died from wounds suffered in the shootout while Joni played dulcimer and sang of being intoxicated by romance. Axton did not regret his sacrifice, but he felt a certain longing.

     FORTY found Axton triumphant! The castle was collapsing from the explosion, but Tilde was safe… and he was by her side.

     FORTY-ONE. Tilde rescued from the brothel to Joni strumming out her tale of fleeting romance and wanderlust in the jubilant Carey. Axton alive.

     FORTY-TWO. The Cartel arrested, the blackmail file recovered, Tilde’s reputation safe.      Axton alive and whistling along to California.

     FORTY-THREE. The hurricane passed, leaving the casino in ruins but Tilde and Axton alive and enjoying a warbly dulcimer serenade.

 

     The Psy chamber powered down with an attenuating minor chord that faded to nothing. The people he’d just been with drooped and melted like chocolate bunnies left in the sun, reappearing in startlingly substantial form. Which way was more real he could not say; each version of the person was distinct yet equally impossible to ignore. Axton felt himself dragged back through all of his lives and horrible deaths like so much spaghetti extruded through a pasta maker. He was using more and more food metaphors for some reason. He lay on the Psy chamber floor in a fetal position, the diadem-link slightly askew on his head. At least he wasn’t sucking his thumb this time.  

     “It’s time,” Tilde said. Her perfect face had become lined and tired. Even under her drab clothes, he could see her shoulders slouching ever so slightly, the ripeness of her breasts succumbing to years and gravity. She’s real, Axton thought. “This is it. Project Melpo is riding on you now. Don’t let us down!”

     “I won’t, Tilde. I won’t let you down,” he said, and he meant it. He opened his mouth to say something. He wanted to tell her…

     Rusty, who in unfiltered reality was going gray, rolled his eyes and rubbed the deep reddened line on his forehead. Tilde’s bangs no doubt hid a matching line left by a diadem-link. Rusty offered Tilde his half-eaten doughnut, and she took a giant bite with a mischievous wink and giggle.

     The trio spoke sparingly as Axton got cleaned-up and dressed for the plane.

 

     Thalia was a woman who’d spent quality time with her stylist and her plastic surgeon. The introductions at her villa on Crete were perfunctory, the sex inevitable though not incredible. She laughed easily, came even more readily, but was not one for pillow talk.

     For weeks, Axton followed his instructions as the pair traveled the globe tending her business. In Belgrade, he played a dangerous game, allowing her would-be assassin to close in while he stalked the stalker. His earbuds soothed him with sweet songs of love’s elusive, ever-distant call as Axton flung the man from a high balcony.

     His Melpo Psy Training served him well, allowing him to easily discern threats, disarm bombs, and dispatch trained killers. The actual challenges he faced were far more mundane than the imaginative sessions played out in the MPT chamber. No matter the odds, he landed upright on his feet.

     In the end, it only made sense to take the fight to his enemies. That is, Thalia’s enemies. Three families were vying for total control, including a faction of her own. His traps were clever, lyrical even. He avoided taking pleasure in his killing, but he allowed himself the satisfaction of serving his purpose. Within two months, all serious threats were liquidated.

     Days later, seated at a Rive Gauche café, he told her, “You’re safe now. It’s time for me to leave.”

     “You could stay with me.” She said it, her tone neither desperate nor seductive.

     He thought about the offer, seriously considered it. They’d seen death together and come out alive. Axton had come to the realization, however, that the thing that kept defeating him was himself. If he stayed, whatever he might feel for this woman would not last. It was a simple trick to land right-side up once or even a few times, but in the end… “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. I feel the urge to be going.”

     He didn’t have to die for a living anymore. To the positive, he suffered no serious flashbacks to his many horrible demises. Except for the tiger mauling. He’d never go to another zoo. Ever.

     Axton finished his Sauvignon Blanc, stood, smiled, and stepped away from the table. Walking along the Seine, headed nowhere with no fetters to bind him, he whistled a Joni tune. Cursed luck or not, he was a free man.

###

 

     I hope you enjoyed my little story of love and danger. If you really want a messed up life... check out Zebulon Angell and the Shadow Army.

https://www.amazon.com/Zebulon-Angell-Shadow-Chris-Riker/dp/1637107056

 

 

Details

Published: 31 May 2025

 

     Witches are keeping up with the times. They're even on social media...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/26/us/witches-modern-witchcraft-witchtok-cec/index.html

     Some witchy wisdom is at the heart of my novel Goody Celeste.

https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker/dp/1665307072

     Goody Celeste by Chris Riker is about boys with fire in their legs, biking twenty miles to the beach and back and laughing it off. It's about a remarkable woman and those caught in her emotional gravity well. The time that was, whispering to the now we've made; it's in there. A pinch of wonder, a teaspoon of melancholy, stir in humor to make a witch's brew, a recipe for reflection. It's eating fries with vinegar, listening to folk music, body surfing, driving classic cars, and making choices we cannot take back. A purple door leads into a shop of dangerous wonders, where a cat with mismatched eyes watches foolish humans get themselves tangled in the reins of love.

 

 

Details

Published: 20 May 2025

 

 https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/environment/2025/05/08/listening-right-whales-whoi-woods-hole-massachusetts-division-marine-fisheries-baumgartner/83037277007/

 If you'd like to know more about the plans of whales and dolphins, check out Come the Eventide.

 https://www.amazon.com/Come-Eventide-Chris-Riker/dp/1631834525

 

Details

Published: 11 May 2025

  Here there be dragons... and more.

         

            The sailor’s eyes widened and her mouth opened, but nothing came out – she never had time to scream. The bulkhead flared and vanished, taking her and two other baby-faced crewmen with it into open space. Chief’s eardrums popped, leaving only one dull tone, as she shoved the others through the far hatch, screaming orders no one could hear until the ship’s systems restored atmosphere. They felt the full effects of the enemy salvo vibrate furiously through the guts of the ship. She’d gotten five sailors past the immediate danger. 

            She knew the names of the three lost on the opposite side of that hatch, of course – Ari, Kaija, Ben – knew their hometowns, the stupid jokes they made in the mess, their plans for after the service. All of that would go into the letters to the families that she’d write and the captain would sign. Three letters. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing crewmates die or the stabbing pain from sudden decompression and re-pressurization; in any case, the survivors were screaming. Two were crying. One vomiting. Children.

            As her hearing slowly recovered, Chief Freda Henry sensed the passageway rattle and roar with the power of Perun’s forward guns unleashing retribution. Somewhere, thousands of miles distant perhaps, someone was paying a steep price for daring to mess with them. Chief wanted to know what was going on, who they’d engaged, but that would wait. Right now, she ordered everyone aft and down one deck to the suit locker. They needed tools to begin the repairs, and pressurized armor – this fight wasn’t over yet.

            She called in replacements for the lost sailors, got everyone suited up, and began the painstaking job of securing each compartment. It was grunt work. She called out the checklist over the suit comms. “Pressure check. Seals.”

            “Normal, intact,” Herschel called out, his eyes on the scanner he was clutching like his life depended on it. This was his first deep space posting, but she could already tell he didn’t belong here.

            “That’s what the instruments say. I said check!” Chief pointed to Herchel and flicked her finger sharply upward.  

            With hands shaking, Herschel flipped his headgear open and back. He was panting, sweating profusely, but not dying.

            Chief opened her own rig. “Steady breaths, sailor.” She made her tone softer, more reassuring. “Good. Don’t think. The job is everything. Do your job.”

            He looked back at her, his demeanor visibly calmer. “Cabin pressure feels normal, Chief.” Hershel paced the perimeter slowly. “I don’t hear any hissing, Chief. No smell of fresh combustion, but the air still stinks from scorched metal.”

            “Get used to that,” Chief said.

            On the other side of the compartment, Enzo and his team partner were using handheld instruments to read the temperature of the bulkheads, deck, and overhead as per Chief’s protocol. Headgear would snap back in place quickly if the pressure changed. It took way too long to get a glove on. “She’s cold, Chief, like Emi’s last date,” Enzo said. Always the joker.

            “Chief,” Spaceman Second Class Emi Yasuda looked at her with painful shyness, as if she’d rather chew off her own arm than address her superior. “I don’t hear anything.”

            “That’s good, sailor.” The guns were quiet. They had taken no more hits to the hull. “It’s good that we’re here to hear that nothing.” Battles in space never lasted long. It took very little time to kill a ship… or be killed.

            Chief walked them through a second round of checks, this time focusing on less critical operating systems. This compartment was secure.

            “Next!” she ordered.

***

            The briefing room was a sea of grim, sleepless faces. At least, they’d made it twenty-four hours without new enemy contacts.

            “We went looking for those soulless insects, and we found them,” Captain Reynard D. Puck IV said, speaking in jingoistic slogans. He sounded like everyone back on Earth, including her sister who she didn’t miss, even after two years apart. There were no insects in space, just other humans looking for a fight.  

            Puck was a lieutenant commander, not even a full commander, which was the usual minimum to captain a ship this size. He was bound for glory, thanks to his family’s connections at FedCon Space Command. Also thanks to the untimely death of Captain Reece at the Battle of Delos Arcadia three weeks earlier. Untimely except for the fact that Puck and his supporters had goaded the captain into taking ever greater risks. Now that Puck was in charge, things had only gotten worse. They should have returned to the nearest base along with their damaged sister ship instead of pressing on alone. Puck, however, had things to prove to the upper brass.

            “Two confirmed kills, Captain,” Puck’s provisional second-in-command reported. Lieutenant Helen Dodds was a competent officer, but she was not willing to caution the captain away from risky engagements. None of the command staff were. They were loyalists, captain first FedCon second, with the crew not making the list. “One was their capital ship, an Ares-class carrier. The other three vessels withdrew with heavy damage.”

            They’d probably seen this as an easy victory: one FedCon heavy cruiser traveling alone. It was a mistake anyone could make… once. Still, the surviving ships would go and bring back help. Most likely, they had three maybe four weeks before the enemy returned in force. They needed a plan.

            Staffers around the table made their reports orally, backing up written reports Puck had certainly not read. The NCOs stood in a cluster, calling out the specific repair estimates. Once or twice, she caught some of them eyeing a rack of weapons mounted on the nearby bulkhead. They were all too seasoned to make that mistake, but the temptation was certainly there.  

            As senior chief, she had drawn the plumb assignment and gave her assessment: “We need seventeen hull section plates. That new synthetics unit can provide almost anything, but the hopper is nearly empty following our recent engagements. We need plates, and without them, we can’t make a jump at full power. At minimal power, it would take eight months to hop to the nearest friendly port. It's even farther to any asteroid we might harvest for usable alloys.” She let that hang for a second.

            “We don’t talk defeat aboard the Perun, Chief,” Captain Puck said dryly. “Your recommendation?”

            “We could call for back-up and a tow…” Chief didn’t wait for his predictable response. “There is, however, System M-13Ώ4, about two weeks away under current conditions.”

            “And why do we want to go to this star system, Chief?” the captain asked in genuine ignorance.  

            Dodds answered, “It’s the last known position of the Macha, sir. Crippled in the last war. When that war ended, salvage was given a low priority, and it never happened.”

            “And?”

            Chief jumped in. “Scavengers have gone there for years. Only a handful have ever come back. Those don’t talk much, but they say the crew abandoned her.”

            “Macha’s crew must have transferred to the planet,” Puck surmised. “The atmosphere?”

            Rankin, the head of the astro survey team, answered. “No full assessment available. We haven’t even gotten around to naming the planet. Reports list it as Grade-E, fiercely inhospitable.”

            Chief added, “Scavengers won’t touch the place. They say it’s full of monsters.”

            “Colorful,” said Puck.

            Rankin said, “Unconfirmed, either way.”

            Chief spoke again. “The scavenger I talked to says Macha is hanging off the fourth planet. Derelict. Should be plenty of hull plates for us.”

            “Set course. Best possible speed. I want us there in two weeks!”

***

            There were twenty of them. Too many for a run like this. As mission leader, a senior chief would ordinarily be aft with the empty-headed cherubs, trying to scare them enough to keep them alive. “One wrong step and you’re dead, sailor!” Ordinarily, she thought, I’d have a chance of bringing all of them back alive. She was bone-tired of this feeling, so she stayed in the long boat’s command cabin, keeping one eye on the pilot, a green lieutenant.  

            It was day three of the operation. Four sailors had gone MIA. No trace.

            The drone tugs were peeling hull plating like the FCSC Macha were some luscious fruit. What was left of her. Macha had breached amidships with jagged bits twisted outwards testifying to the tremendous force of a direct hit on the main drive. By comparison, Perun’s battle wounds didn’t look as bad, two deep scars across her starboard side from just aft of Control nearly to the main drive. Nearly. Thirty-five hundred officers and sailors were still alive because something unthinkable nearly happened but did not.

            Macha, goddess of war. Even crippled, she was terrifying – a Morrigan-class dreadnought from the last war, an angry hulk looming over a hostile world. Of the eleven opposing ships in that conflict, only three limped home. The rest were floating in chunks scattered throughout the system. Macha had lost, but the crew had tucked her into a LaGrange point here to take their chances below. That was the last anyone had heard, then nothing for seven years.

            The pilot called out. “Closing on port bay. Same as last run. She’s still got that damn debris field.” Scree traveling with the dead ship clacked off the long boat’s hull. They could avoid the big bits, but there were billions of sand-and-pebble-sized hazards out there.

            “People?” Chief asked.

            “Inconclusive. Wall of noise on scanners A through H. It’s gotta be residual energy from when the ship’s drive breached.”

            A breach was not pretty. It would damage the ship, of course, but the radiation was worse. Within hours, anyone who wasn’t suited when it happened would be dead. It might take days or maybe weeks, as their cell walls liquified and collapsed, but it was a final judgement. No appeal.

            What about the others? A breach takes time to build up. At least some of the crew would have had a chance to –

            Chief cut off her own thoughts. “Activity? Motion of any kind?”

            “No motion we can read. The seals check out; it’s breathable aboard but on the cold side. A few degrees above freezing. No heat signatures above that.”

            They set down in the port landing bay as they’d done on each of the past trips. Four trips. They’d stolen anything they could possibly use, including food stores and weapons components. It was a feast! A trade-off. Four trips. Four missing sailors. Puck had clamped down on open chatter about the missing, but sailors were highly skilled at whispering gossip. They knew exactly who had vanished.

            “Teams, form up. Get to your next assigned hull section –” Chief checked her roster “–port ventral minus six, sections 613 through 617.” They headed off, each team splitting off in turn. Chief told her people, “We’ll cut the mounts as before and let the drone tugs carry the plates back to Perun. You know your assignments. Eye contact at all times. No screw-ups, people!”

            Chief took Emi, Herschel, the wiseass Enzo, and a dead-eyed sailor named Artem. Plate installation was designed to be permanent, but her teams carried plasma torches to convince the support structures otherwise. Macha drew them in through her brightly lit compartments and shadowy recesses. Their visors could compensate, but every time they moved into a new area, it took long moments for their retinas to adjust. That’s when their imagination played games. They could hear movement in the distance – the other teams reaching their assigned locations. Maybe. For its part, Macha made her own noises, as servos triggered behind bulkheads and ventilation systems dutifully roared to life at random intervals.

            Enzo was the wildcard of the group. The astral navy frowned on body art, especially bio-lite glyphs. As those who’d seen him in the shower could attest, Enzo was covered neck-to-nuts in serpents, naked women, religious slogans, all of which lit up. His facial glyphs outshone the light in his headgear. Enzo was incapable of taking anything seriously, he reveled in the tension of the situation. He’d brought a pouch of bearings with him. Stepping around a frame joist into darkness, he tossed one into the void. The metal bearing skittered and bounced. “Oh, no! What’s that?”

            “Idiot!” Emi cried, her face betraying genuine concern. “Why do you have to be like that – such a child?”

            “You should have stayed home, sugar cheeks. Let the boys handle the fighting.”

            “I wanted to. Every family has to contribute at least two members into the service. My older brother went. He died at Triton. Next, it came down to either me or my younger brother. He’s only fifteen, so I went. I was planning to go to college, but that’s on hold for now.”

            “You wanted to be a doctor or lawyer?” Enzo chided.

            “I will be a xenobotanist, after the war” Emi replied.

            Enzo’s laughter rang out. “Don’t you watch the news? The Arch Council’s already talking shit about the Omicron Eridani Trade Group. There’s no after the war. There’s only this war and the next war and the next. Bye-bye buttercups. Oh, don’t cry. I’ll buy you a dozen roses and show you my shiny Anaconda, eh, sugar cheeks?” 

            Emi was pale.

            Chief had had enough. “Call out!”

            Each of the four sailors cried out their name in the designated order.

            “Four present. Good. Enzo, since you’re obviously bored, you operate the torch.” Perun’s plating was modular. Macha used an older design; its plates were fully bonded. First, Chief used her pistol, scorching the metal seam to trace out a precise guide for the far more powerful torch. Whoever operated the plasma tool would feel that heat, even through their suit. It was dangerous work, but Enzo had nominated himself. They moved into position.

            “Headgear closed.” Four thumbs up. She closed her own. “Go!”

            Enzo triggered the torch’s fury. It bit into the inner side of the hull, making a deep, clean incision. Even with their visors, the light was shockingly bright. A sudden, high-pitched whistle sounded, so loud their headgear filters had to block most of it, then everything went silent. They’d breached the hull and let out the atmosphere in this section of the Macha. 

            The work was difficult, performed in cramped quarters. Every action had to be checked and re-checked before they carried it out. Otherwise, they’d be throwing lives away. They moved from one cramped place to the next, making cuts over several hours. This gave the big drones outside a clear chance to make a few final snips and begin hauling away the thirty-ton plate.

            Chief ordered, “Call out!”

            Four sailors called out their names.

            “Head back to the long boat.”

            They rejoined the other teams in the landing bay, which still had atmosphere. Sailors opened their visors and traded nonsense stories of how they’d bravely carried out their work. Some began shoving each other in mock aggression. It was like watching a schoolyard at recess.

            “Team leaders, have your teams call out!” Chief ordered.

            Each team leader repeated the order in their assigned turn. Once that team finished, the team leaders called, “All present.”

            Chief’s team went last. “Call out!” Three sailors answered.

***

            “I take full responsibility, captain. Spaceman Artem Chumak was competent but inexperienced.” Senior Chief Petty Officer Freda Henry, FCSC stood in the captain’s mess with her back gun barrel straight. She kept her eyes on a colorful seal on the far bulkhead showing a god wielding an axe in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other. Perun. I ordered Specialist Lorenzo Herrera –”

            “The walking porn screen?” Captain Puck asked, biting into his double bacon cheeseburger. Rare.

            “Yes, I ordered Herrera to maintain eye contact at all times, however, I also ordered him to carry the plasma torch back to the long boat, which means I failed to –”

            “Chief, shut up.” Captain Puck spoke with his mouth full, his lips dripping with ketchup.

            “Yes, sir.”

            “You lost a man. That stinks.” His Ss sprayed burger blood. “I’d like to know what happened to Chumak and the other missing sailors, but right now that’s secondary. Our primary mission is to repair the damage and get back in the fight. Thanks to that dreadnought over there, we now have more firepower than any ship in the fleet. I’d like to use it on somebody.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Dodds, who sat across the table, quietly eating a salad, spoke up. “Scanners are a hot mess, as you know. We’ve posted lookouts. One of them reports spotting a momentary glint.”

            “A glint, sir?”

            “A glint, Chief, about halfway between our current position alongside Macha and that nasty-ass planet out there. So, we turned our attention planetside, and what do you think we found?”

            Chief looked to both officers, then finally hazarded, “I’m sure I don’t know either, sir.”

            Dodds said, “No, you don’t. We don’t know and you don’t know. We found an odd reading. Might be a power source and some refined metal, but we can’t quite tell through all the interference. So, we sent down a scout drone. And do you know what we found then?”

            “No, sir. I don’t know.”

            “No, you don’t know that either because something destroyed that drone. Would you like to see the something that did it?”

            Uncomfortable at being led, Chief was nonetheless curious as hell. “Yes, sir.”

            “This is the last visual we got back, about an hour ago.” Captain Puck gnawed on his rare meat while Dodds punched up an image and showed Chief the last moments of the drone’s existence. The scene floated between them, showing the drone firing at a large moving object, creature, thing, rising up above the tops of dense purplish-green foliage. Its face, if that was a face, carried thick armored scales. Its snout was blunt, with a central beak-like shape. There was no sign of a body through the undergrowth, but the neck was impressive.

            “A dragon,” Chief said.

            “Fire-breathing variety,” Captain Puck said, or rather sprayed.

            The dragon, or whatever, opened its maw, exposing shark-like rows of teeth. It did not belch flame, but rather neck pouches on either side of its jaw swelled up and its head jerked. At that moment, the drone went dark. The picture and all telemetry ended in an instant.

            “Sonics, we think. Whatever that thing is, it took out a shielded scout drone.”

            “Impressive.”

            “Which is why you’ll want to take full precautions when you and your team go in to investigate, Chief.”

            Lieutenant Dodds stopped Chief in the corridor afterwards. “You should have fried Herrera’s neon ass to a crispy brown. You play mother hen to these chicks, Freda. They don’t know how lucky they are. Just don’t forget to cover your own ass.”

            “Aye, sir.” Good advice. She’d try to take it.

***

            They had thirty hours on the surface. Chief had requested Emi, Herschel, and Enzo not be assigned to this mission, but Dodds felt they owed something for losing Artem. Or maybe she thought this duty would allow them to pay penance. Sometimes people needed punishment, even when they weren’t actually at fault, so they could get on with their lives. Dodds understood sailors. Chief wished Dodds were their captain… then she mentally kicked herself for having such thoughts.

            The skiff was smaller than a long boat and held only Chief, the other three, two gunner’s mates, and the pilot. They landed in a clearing within two miles of the power signature they’d detected from Perun. The pilot immediately lifted off, promising to observe from orbit and return for the other six at the designated time.

            “What are we hoping to find, Chief?” Emi asked.

            “Me? I’m hoping we don’t find a damned thing.”

            The planet was a living contradiction. It was cool, chilly even, yet the vegetation resembled tropical growth, except for the color. The sky was pink, the air thick, sticky. A few of them opted to keep their headgear closed.

            They began walking, stepping into dense purple-green growth. They couldn’t pick out any birds perched in the canopy, but through breaks overhead they spotted a vast flock (school?) of manta-shaped things lazily flagellating their bodies in the cool, dense air. They'd occasionally pass a sprig of outrageously-colored flowers, their blooms opening and closing slowly, at the edge of perception.

            “I wish we could leave places like this alone,” Herschel said, dropping his usual stiffness. “If we ever stop killing each other long enough, people will come to worlds like this.”

            “It’ll make a decent base or colony, if we can kill off those dragons,” said Gunner’s Mate Mateo Silva. “I’d like to see one up close.” As he said it, he hoisted his weapon, a heavy-duty houchong, almost as powerful as the enemy guns that had wounded Perun.

            Hershel made a face. “That’s exactly what I mean. We come to worlds we don’t understand ready to blast anything that moves.”

            As if to underscore that point, the other gunners mate, Nick Waltham, called out. “Five o’clock!” Before Chief could even turn to look, Waltham’s houchong was firing, chopping up the trees, turning purple-green fronds and heavy bladders to mushy shreds.

            “Waltham. Report.”

            “I thought I saw something about two hundred yards off.”

            “Something?”

            “Not sure, maybe a dragon, a small one.” He grinned sheepishly. “It was moving.”

            Chief checked her scanner. “Well, nothing’s moving now.”  

            “Yes, Chief.” Nick Waltham sounded pleased with himself.

            She kept scanning, slowly turning her body. “I’m reading two more of those dragons out there, maybe a mile or so. Not moving for now.”

            It took half an hour for the natural audioscape to return. The air was thick with fat things buzzing by their heads. Looking closely at the trees, Chief began to spot some of these bugs clinging to limbs. Even when she brushed a frond, the hairy bugs clung on silently. Things unseen scurried or slithered beneath low growth plants. There were, however, few cries of aggression or amour. This nauseatingly palleted jungle liked to keep its business secret.

            An oily rain fell until they were all drenched, then quit as quickly as it had begun. Now, they all smelled like they belonged there.

             Reaching the edge of a stagnant pool, they found small animals milling about. Mostly, the various beasts sat contentedly upon a spot like they were nesting. Occasionally, fat bugs delivered themselves to the beasts, lighting on a paw only to be casually devoured without protest on the bugs’ part. If a human got too close, then the beasts scurried off. These creatures were nothing remarkable, most of them cat-like except for a few extra joints, a dorsal fin, and an array of wriggling filaments springing from their undersides. These resembled colorful threads hanging out of a granny’s yarn basket. The feature made the cats less pettable. The trees had a mix of oddly-shaped fronds and brighter-colored bladders that hung down like fruit. They moved cautiously, unsure what else was hiding underfoot.

            Emi took samples as she went. “I want more of these, Chief. Many more. The cells – this – it’s different. New.”

            “We’re not here for the plants, sailor. Take your samples, but keep your eyes up. Don’t get lost in your work.” Chief kept her tone gentle. Emi was trying to get back to her passion for xenobotany. That is, if these purple plants qualified as... plants.

            “It stinks down here, Chief.” Enzo. Always with the comments. “Bad.”

            Nick spoke up. “It’s getting worse. I think we should veer east.”

            “Agreed,” Chief acknowledged, spreading a pungent balm on her lip below her nose.

           They covered the rest of the distance in silence. At last, they came upon the site they’d plotted from orbit. It showed signs of having been a temporary settlement, very small. Someone made it to the planet. Didn't last long here. Their handheld scanners confirmed the presence of refined metal, but there wasn’t much of anything to be found in these collapsed shacks. And no power. They methodically paced the immediate area in a grid formation.

           Chief looked over and found Emi squatting down, holding out one ungloved hand. Chief was about to scold Emi when she realized what the sailor was trying to do. One of the local cats was coming closer, sniffing at Emi’s hand. It was a pleasant scene in an unreal setting. The cat’s violet eyes narrowed, and its tongue darted out several inches like a snake sensing its way along.

            Enzo was nearby. He stepped over to join Emi. “Here, puss puss.” The cat-thing tensed and leapt away, springing a good six feet in one bound, tearing filaments free of tentative contact with the earth. When it landed, it immediately plopped its body down into the thick foliage. The creature’s belly threads rustled below it and burrowed in. The cat took on a contented expression, closing its eyes and emitting a low humming.

            Emi remained kneeling, her eyes still on the cat. “I think they connect with the plant life here, Chief. We’ve never seen a lifeform that could bridge plant and animal, but the native life here is unique. We have to study it.”

            This time, Chief knelt by Emi and put her hand on the sailor’s shoulder. “I wish I could give you that chance. I really do. We’re here to find answers. We’ve got missing people and traces of something hidden. We can’t get distracted by –” Enzo was looking on, his glyphs glowing faintly in the late afternoon light. The two GMs were standing a few feet away, also looking on.

            Chief stood up. “Shit. Herschel! Sound off.” No answer.

            An hour later, the sun was getting low, and they’d found no sign of their missing sailor.   

***

            “Can’t we just leave?” Emi was pleading with her. In truth, that’s exactly what Chief wanted to do, but she shook her head nonetheless.

            Nick and Mateo set up the camp, such as it was. Nick pulled a long cannister from his rig and tapped one end. Out sprang a closed hemisphere of dense carbon fiber over a semi-rigid frame. Enzo drew his sidearm and used it to set a sloppy pile of foliage aflame. Unsurprisingly, it kicked out far more oily smoke and stink than light. Fortunately, he’d cleared the immediate area so they didn’t set the whole jungle alight.

            “Just something to keep the neighbors away,” he explained. Dozens of cats and a few of the larger animals were gathering around the campsite, but the fire held them back several dozen yards.

            Home. Emi and Chief unpacked the hot-serve tins, setting it on a blanket, picnic style. Mateo ate standing up while the others popped open the steaming tins.

            Enzo stared down at his dinner. “Meat hash.” The sailors had their own ideas as to what the Quartermaster Corps considered meat. 

            “All of them?” Nick asked. “They can’t all be meat hash.”

            “Oh yes, they can.” Thank the space gods for Emi. She was the only one brave enough, or scared enough, to make a terrible pun.

            “Well, the bugs love it.” Mateo was masterfully contorting himself in order to cover his tin while eating, all without lowering his houchong or taking his eyes off the perimeter. The bugs were in fact swarming the food. Try as they might, the little monsters – neither quite insect nor mammal – found their way into the hash. They each managed a few bites before caution and revulsion cut the meal short.

            “We’ve got about forty-five minutes until it gets dark,” Nick said, looking from his scanner to the treeline. “I’m picking up something in that direction. It’s… too close.” He began walking toward a particularly uninviting patch of jungle.

            Chief was on her feet. “What are you up to? I don’t give you permission to leave camp.”

            He never looked back as he answered. “The captain ordered GM Silva and me to keep you others safe. This is a threat.”

            “I’ll go with you!” Before she could object, Enzo was off, catching up with Mateo.

            “Comms on!” she ordered. Chasing them would have created more trouble. Shooting Enzo would have felt good but been hard to explain in her after action report.

            Nick launched a pilot fish, the tiny drone’s signal immediately lighting up Chief’s scanner. She adjusted the image to hover above the device so that Mateo and Emi could see. Even with stabilizers, the view became confusing as soon as they crossed into the dense foliage.

            Enzo and Nick traded jokes about what kind of trophy they’d bring back. “From what I’m reading, we’ll be lucky to get one claw on the boat.” Laughter somehow sounded unnatural in that jungle.

            Chief called in on comms, “Move your flying fish forward. Scout ahead.”

            “We’re fine, Chief. We can already hear the thing breathing. By the way, this is the source of the stink we all smelled earlier. These things are foul.”

            Everything on this planet stank. This whole mission stank. They’d burned up their first day and discovered nothing.

            “Holy shit!” the comms sounded. “Look at that thing! It’s legs are like trees. Those are trees. The legs are trees! Shit.” Enzo and Nick were excitedly talking over each other like teens sharing their first beer. 

            “Waltham, report!” Chief screamed.

            Enzo’s face came into the floating image. “It’s coming at us, Chief. Taking defensive measures.” He sounded thrilled rather than afraid.

            Before Chief could speak, the image flared with the power of Waltham’s houchong. Things got confusing quickly. The flying fish was too close to Waltham and set for close-ups; he hadn’t bothered to adjust it to a wide angle. Chief could see the two sailors grinning like idiots, cheering their victory. Then, suddenly, their expressions changed to amazement… and then to fear.

            “Move!” Enzo shouted. He was already running.

            The flying fish showed Waltham standing his ground, raising his houchong again, but he never got off the second shot. A shadow spread over him, then the flying fish moved off – why wasn’t clear, although its programming might include a few lines for self-preservation. Waltham wasn’t as smart. An instant later the transmission captured an impossibly loud noise similar to the one the scout drone had sent back to the Perun. The jungle exploded, literally. Fronds shredded, and every hanging purple-green bladder burst like squashed grapes.

            Juice spattered the flying fish’s optical, which was a good thing. From what they could tell, that sonic blast had stripped away all of the flesh from Waltham’s upper body. Even as his gore-soaked skeleton began to topple, a giant maw reached down and engulfed him. The thing was faster than one might expect. A second blurry thrust captured the flying fish as well.

            The image back in camp darkened. For a few more moments, it transmitted dim movement and a gurgling noise – the flying fish was being swallowed along with Waltham’s remains – then the image cut out.

***

            Enzo’s and Mateo’s eyes glossily reflected the giant moon rising in the west. They acted dazed, either from what they’d just seen, or from the max dosage of stims Chief had ordered them to take, or both. They’d stand guard through the night. She’d consider relieving at least one of them, depending on how she felt after a few hours’ sleep. She and Emi made themselves as comfortable as possible in the tent shelter.

            Emi dropped off in minutes, bless her, breathing softly as she lay against Chief’s side. It was like having a daughter.

            And there, she’d done it. That was a whole bag of snakes she managed to open at the worst possible times. She’d made her choices. Glenn had certainly wanted marriage, children, a house in the country. She didn’t feel committed to the service, and she’d long since passed her mandatory term. So, why had she not taken that plunge instead of re-upping time and again. She was nearly too old for – She knew why. Earth was no place for kids. It was strangely easier to mind the oversized children on a ship than it would be to watch her own back on Earth. What a hell-hole they’d made of the place.

            Her head spun for a couple of hours. She willed her thoughts to stop, but her brain had a mind of its own.

            She wasn’t exactly sure when – the two sentries called out hourly like olde time towne criers – but eventually, she dropped into a cool, deep nothing. Paradise.

            Freda found herself on a tropical island. Normal, green palm trees like the ones she remembered from vacations long ago. Here, days would come and go without worry. Just sea and sinking sand. A light breeze. Colorful birds. The rolling surf. The sinking to her right side. A dolphin jumping in the waves. The sand collapsing to her right. More waves.

            “Emi!”

            Chief was moving before she came fully awake, doing several things at once.

            “Mateo! Enzo! Get in here!” Chief screamed even as she rolled over to her right. Her voice triggered tiny lights worked into the fabric of the shelter and she got a look at what had awakened her.

            Emi was sinking through the bottom of the tent. Something had violated the densely-woven fibers. Chief’s eyes recovered from the shock of the sudden lighting to see threads running up from the ground. They were working their way over Emi’s face, up her nose. More were finding gaps in her suit – that shouldn’t be possible. The little tendrils were sending out tendrils of their own, even thinner, almost invisible. All of this was going on without disturbing Emi’s slumber.

            She was sinking fast into the ground below. Even as the two men came through the shelter’s opening, Enzo’s facial glyphs blazing in terror, Chief hugged herself tightly against Emi’s prone body.

            An instant later, the two of them were deep inside the soft, warm earth.

***

            Enzo’s desperate screams were coming from above her, but they were already dim and distant.

            The threads probed Chief, seeking out her openings. They weren’t painful, more of a tickle. They were getting into her, connecting, transmitting some sort of chemical or electrical message to her nervous system to relax. She was glad of that. Being buried alive was not pleasant. By rights, she ought to have been hysterical with panic, but she wasn’t. In fact, she was enjoying the sensation of being held in the planet’s protective womb.

            Now she slept. She went back to her tropical island. The birds were lovely and the waves stretched out forever. Emi was sleeping by her side on the beach, smiling.

***

           Chief was awake and not awake. Her senses were Tapatio 110-level fuzzy.

            Emi was a few feet down the tunnel. They were in a tunnel with metal bracings. She could see. One thought at a time. The tunnels appeared to branch off just past where Emi was standing. The tunnel walls gave off a mid-range purple-hued light. The walls were alive.

           The tunnel walls shuddered and rang from a terrible pounding. Bits of stone pelted her head. Enzo and Mateo must be trying to dig their way down to her, using the houchong. Must be making quite a mess.

           So hard to focus.

           “Don’t be afraid.”

            Easy for you to say. Some of us aren’t used to being buried alive.

            “It could not be helped.”

            She looked at Emi. Her eyes were open, and she was smiling, but her lips were not moving. She turned in the opposite direction. The tunnel widened considerably, enough to hold a large group of people. She saw Herschel and Artem and other crewmen who’d vanished. There were others there, too, dressed in crude, woven clothing. 

            “Which one of you –” Her own voice startled her. The conversation before had been between a voice and her thoughts. “Who are you?”

            “I’m Arlen Spencer, former third officer of the FCSC Macha.” His hand swept back. In the distance, the passage opened to a sizeable cavern. Chief could vaguely make out the silhouettes of large buildings against the illuminated cave walls, no doubt built using girders and other metal salvaged from their crippled ship. “Welcome to Innovu, short for initium novum.”

            “New beginning.”

            “You know your latin, Freda,” said Lt. Commander Spencer. He had the bearing of an officer, if not the chill fierceness of one. There was a kindness to his eyes that had no business on a warrior.

            “Is this all of you?” Chief asked.

            “No, not all. We have a home here, community.” He motioned with his head back at the darkened city.

            “You’ve been here seven years. You might have rebuilt your main drive in that amount of time. You could have made it home.”

            “Maybe. Maybe not. Innovu has few refinable metals at strata we can reach. We occasionally return to Macha to strip what we can. Beyond that, we’ve allowed the planet to reshape us to conditions here. It feeds us.” Spencer indicated threads trailing off his abdomen.

            Emi came closer. Threads were also dancing between her and her surroundings, snapping free from the tunnel wall only to reach out and rejoin some hidden network once she stopped moving.

            “This is home for them. For us.”

            Spencer raised one hand. “You know about the battle that crippled our ship. It was only one in a long series of engagements. We killed every ship we encountered. No quarter. No prisoners. Fear was the mission of our dreadnought, and we performed our duty well.

            “There came a time when we grew tired of the killing. I think you can understand. FedCon Space Command certainly would not. We requested rotation for the crew. They refused. Ordered us to seek out more targets. More lives to extinguish. Our final battle took us here to System M-13Ώ4. We did our duty, but when it was over, we found that we were badly damaged. Our captain and most of the senior staff were dead. It was our end as a fighting force.

            “We’ve chosen to live apart from the endless wars of Earth. We built a life. Homes. Children. We could expand… if we had more to work with. Unlike your ship, Macha was not outfitted to build anything, only to destroy. We’ve stripped all we can from her, but…   

            “In any case, a month ago, our long-range scanners detected your battle. We evacuated our city, powered it down. We sent teams – maybe more seasoned than yours, better trained at stealth. We assessed your sailors and brought some of them here. All of us wish to remain, I assure you. We've been to the dance. We're happy to be wallflowers.

            “While your ship remains here, we are quite capable of living in these tunnels – they were our first home on Innovu. We ‘live off the land,’ literally.”

            “These threads.”

            Spencer smiled. “Short-lived organisms, highly mobile go-betweens connecting one lifeform to another, a gift from Innovu, our living home. We’ve entered a symbiotic relationship with the planet… like the puff dragons.”

            “Is that what you call them?”

            “They’re harmless. Truly. By the time they reach such impressive size, they are quite literally rooted into the earth.”

            Chief drew in a sharp breath, remembering. “The legs are trees. They are, aren’t they?”

            “Yes. And it would have ignored your men – that’s not how it gets nourishment – but they attacked it, wounded it. Violence caught it by surprise. It… reacted.

            “Life is far more cooperative here on Innovu than on Earth. It’s a good life. We’ve observed your sailors, choosing to contact only the ones who don’t fit well in a warlike society. Humans adapt quickly. In a few generations, we may sprout threads from our own bellies. It’s not a bad life, actually. No fighting. Very little predation. As close to harmony as humans are likely to find. Freda, we’d like you to join us.”

            Emi turned to her. “Please.”

            “My captain already has a mystery. Fleet Command can’t ignore this many missing people.”

            Emi was gentle but firm. “I want to stay, Freda.” Of course. It was a xenobotanist’s dream.

            “Me, too, Chief,” Herschel was almost sobbing. This was no killer. No one in that tunnel bore the cold stare of so many others on Earth and aboard her warships.

            The walls of the tunnel shook with the latest houchong blast from the two frightened men above.

            “You two stay. Someone needs to go back and tell a story, unless you want some very unpleasant company.”

            They stood for a moment. She wanted to kick herself, but, in truth, these kids were safe. Someone had to look after the ones on Perun.

            “I respect your choice,” said Spencer. “Someday, I hope you’ll return to us.”

            “I’d like that.”

            “We haven’t much time. Your two friends on the surface are making a very large hole. Before we send you back, however, let me show you some of what we’ve been able to build down here.”

            He led her towards the cavern and the city it contained.

***

            Chief spit dirt under the pinkish sky. “What are you looking at?” she yelled at Enzo and Mateo.

            “We’ve been digging for hours. I’d given up hope,” Mateo said, helping Chief up through the soil and out of the enormous pit. “The skiff is on its way. Should be here in about twenty minutes.”

Enzo glanced behind Chief, but whatever passage she’d come through had already caved in.

            “Good,” she said.

            The two haggard men looked at each other then back to her. Enzo asked, “Chief, aren’t you going to tell us what happened to you? Where’s Emi?”

            She looked up. A pinprick of light was moving in the morning sky. The skiff. Finally, Chief said, “My report is for Captain Puck.”

            They traveled back to Perun in silence.

***

            “And you saw nothing while you were underground?” Captain Curlin demanded.

            The interrogation room was warmer than the planet, but Chief felt cold. Not to mention oily and rank. Still covered in the planet’s crud, she stood before the captain and first officer, who sat there grim-faced. Behind them were the brig’s holding cells, a not-so-subtle reminder that these officers were in no mood for games.

            She willed her face to remain neutral and her breathing steady. “Just empty tunnels, captain.” It wasn’t the first time Chief had lied to an officer. It took skill. She almost added ‘very extensive, heading off in all directions’ then caught herself. Every bit of elaboration was another chance for the whole thing to unravel. Keep your lie simple.

            Lieutenant Dodds asked the next question. “It’s your impression that your missing sailors are dead?”

            The word ‘your’ struck home. She tried to add just the right suppressed grief. “Yes, sir.”

            Captain Puck fidgeted with the screen in his hands. It replayed the death of Waltham and scenes of Enzo and Mateo firing into the earth, trying to dig their way to her and Emi. He looked her directly in the eye. “That still doesn’t explain the sailors who went missing while salvaging materials from the Macha.”

            “I’m at a loss, sir… but… from what we saw on the planet, there are creatures who might have gotten aboard… somehow…”

            “Somehow,” Puck echoed.

            Dodds cleared her throat. “It’s possible the crew of the Macha made several trips while evacuating, inadvertently bringing something back from the planet, a juvenile or an egg or something. It’s possible that thing has survived aboard the ship and preys on whatever it can find.”

            “Survived for seven years?” Clearly, Puck was not buying it.

            “It’s just a theory, captain, but it fits the facts.”

            Puck splayed his fingers flat on the table. “Well, I have another theory. I theorize these sailors saw their chance and deserted my ship. Maybe they found survivors from the Macha and decided to try their luck on the planet. What do you think of my theory, Chief?”

            “I don’t… know.” Chief felt the bulkheads pressing in on her.

            Dodds spoke up. “I’ll order tactical teams, sir. We’ll comb the landing zone and find those tunnels. We should be able to flush out the deserters, ours and the Macha sailors. Assuming the tunnels are as extensive as Chief Henry says, we should be able to get them in less than five, maybe six months. Although, that may give some of them time to escape. We’ll also send more scout drones and additional patrols. These bastards can’t evade us forever. We’ll find them… eventually. Does the captain wish them captured or killed on sight?”

            Puck stared at his executive officer. “I have a war to fight. How many months in ‘eventually,’ Lieutenant Dodds?”

            Bless you, Helen! I owe you enough Tapatio 110 to knock out the fleet. Chief jumped in. “If what we’re discussing is true, there is another possible course of action. We could drop some cargo pods full of construction supplies and a recorded order to build a base.”

            Dodds was on it. “That would allow them the chance to remain loyal. FedCon Command can always send a ship after the war to deal with the deserters as they see fit.”

            “That could take years,” Captain Puck said.

            It could be forever, Chief thought, if our old enemy intercepts us en route back to base, or if we get sent out to fight in an endless series of battles. “Yes, sir. A bad plan. My mistake.” Chief remained rigid.

            Puck eyed her closely.

            Dodds spoke up again. “Dropping pods is quick. And… it saves the captain the embarrassment of reporting a desertion from your command, sir. As far as we’re concerned, we’ve stationed a small party of loyal sailors to tame that planet of beasts. If a future captain arrives and finds those people down there are no longer loyal, that’s a whole separate situation. Doesn’t reflect on us. We’ll keep it quiet of course to discourage further… volunteerism among the crew.”

            “Yes, sir, that’s what I meant, captain, sir,” Chief said.

            “Good thinking, Chief. Get the drop prepared. We get underway at zero ten-thirty hours.”

            Heading to her work station, resisting a powerful urge to stop for a shower, Chief considered things anew. Emi and the others were safe, at least for the foreseeable future. Perun’s scanners had picked up movement at extreme range, no doubt unfriendly, lined up between them and home. Earth, fount of all the wars man had ever fought… and all his wars to come. She envied Emi her new world, and she was grateful to Dodds for helping her protect the children of Innovu.

            Chief reached the duty station. They needed to gather tons of supplies, clothing, medicines, computer upgrades, and more from storage holds all over the ship, then load and secure the pods for drop. Messy grunt work to be done on the double. She looked around the bay at all the expectant faces. She knew their names. These sailors had seen battle, but they were still young. They needed guidance, discipline, love, if they were going to survive.

            Fine, Freda thought. I’m  a mother hen. “Listen up, people. In five hours we will load two pods using eight bots and your eight backs, with zero breaks and zero screw-ups! Questions? No? Good. Let’s move!” Cluck. Cluck.

###

 

I hope you enjoyed some old-style space opera. If you're looking for more weird tales,

please browse this site ChrisRikerAuthor.com and SHARE your favorites!

 

 

 

Details

Published: 01 May 2025