Page 6 of Alien Soldier
I’m not so good at that.
“I’m ashamed,” I say. “Let me be ashamed.”
“Shame has no place in war,” she says. “You survived. It is up to you to live. To move on. To slay the ones who did this.”
A horrible sound pierces the cool afternoon, a siren in the fog. With a hundred other Lyrans, I snap my head toward it to find a human female on her knees in the surf, a grey tunic clutched to her chest. Another human comforts her, along with a Lyran female dressed in the white uniform of the Scholar Caste. I swallow the lump in my throat as I watch her, unsure if what I’m feeling right now is rage or despair.
Humans have fallen in love with Lyra all over our galaxy. They’re mourning with us.
We are not alone in this fight.
“Do we know how they did it yet?” I ask quietly, the female’s voice fading into the background. “It’s been days with no word.”
“You understand the need for discretion, Malix,” Councilor Va’lora says. “I can’t discuss this here.”
“But you know something.”
She peers around at the others, and I see one of the Council guards move for their weapon in case I’m planning something. The guard doesn’t trust me now that I’ve cut my hair. That’s wise of her, I suppose. The last time a Council guard went rogue, they cut their hair and staged a coup.
I didn’t think before I did it. Now that I’m considering my choices, I realize the knife was in my hand before I’d even known I planned on using it to chop off my hair.
“Now is the time to mourn Rath,” she says. “After—thenit will be the time to plot our revenge.”
The wailing starts up again from the human down the beach, but I soon realize that Lyrans are joining her. I can hear the subharmonics in their voices, droning low and deep, vibrating in my chest. I stare out at the waves with the Council, my hands clasped behind my back, and I stand at attention as my people fall into agony.
But I don’t let myself cry with them.
I’ve decided the emotion I’m feeling is rage.
??
I join the Council as a large squadron of guards shepherds us all to the Council Chambers, walking back across the bridge. We lead the procession of Lyra and humans through the streets, up from the sandy beach and back to their homes and their jobs. Even in times of great upheaval, the gears of the city have to keep turning; in Saga, everyone has a part to play in the grand design of the Lyran people. Another councilor carries a jar of bioluminescent algae from the sea, a stand-in from where we would have laid our dead. When we reach the monolith at the center of the capitol plaza, she sets the bulb of algae upon the base of the monolith, a tone played from beneath it lighting up the algae in brilliant green.
That’s all we do for them for now. I imagine we’ll soon erect another monolith, but every possible gesture seems empty.
“What were you saying about revenge?” I ask under my breath.
Councilor Va’lora chuckles, shaking her head. She looks old—older than I remembered, maybe older than she did three days ago.
“You’re eager,” she says. “That’s good.”
She tilts her chin at a group of guards and they fall into line around us as we break off from the group amassing in the plaza. Rather than heading toward the Council Chambers as I expect, she guides me into the archives. Tall ceilings arc overhead, our footsteps echoing on the white marble. A short, awkward scholar meets us at the end of the hall, their head tilted as they press their fist to their palm in a show of respect.
“Council Va’lora,” he says. “Guardsman Va’lora.”
“At ease, Ulak,” she says. “We’re here to see the shard.”
“Of course,” he says. “Right away.”
We follow him, my pulse quickening as we descend into the most secret part of the archive. The sub-basements are known only to the higher castes, and accessible only to those who must know about them for research or security. I wonder what this shard must be—if it will be a piece of the moon where I was raised, the only vestige of a world that’s been destroyed.
Ulak takes us to a lab and the door slides open, letting us inside. A row of scholars stands in their white coats, their eyes all falling to the ground as Councilor Va’lora enters. As one of the senior members of the Council—and one of those who survived each phase of the Civil War—she commands a great deal of respect. It’s one of the reasons she gets so annoyed when I question her.
“Debrief us,” the Councilor says. “My nephew here is going to be delivering this information to our allies in theTaeck Hakirah.”
My ears perk up at the strange pronunciation of the Skoropi tongue—a language we’re still trying to understand, especially given our poor capacity for language learning. TheTaeck Hakirahis what they call themselves in their language, translating roughly to the ‘Divine Houses.’
“I am?” I ask.