Clarity's Dawn Read online

  So when the Lunare tries to do the same, she’s not fast enough and the Flaum has time to react, pushes back from the Lunare, and moves to rake his claws across Viera’s face. I interrupt with a kick to the center of the Flaum’s back. One that sends the furry creature straight into Viera and knocks them both to the ground. Viera rolls as they fall, and pins the creature beneath her, delivering a pair of knockout blows when they settle on the floor.

  Then we’re running again. Out through the dormitory, into the hall. After decimating the guards and the two Flaum, nobody else seems to have an appetite for a fight. The hallway’s empty, and at the far end, leading back towards the chamber where everyone had been yelling before, I see some species vanish. This time, I barely spare a glance for the swirling paints that, minutes ago, so enchanted me.

  The great chamber is cavernous without anyone in it. As soon as we enter, the doors behind us slam shut. In fact all of them do except for one. The door where the Flaum force initially brought us in, the one leading out to the garden and the landing pads.

  “Wonder which way they want us to go,” Viera says.

  “I suggest we take it,” Malo says. “Every second here is more time for them to set a trap. Or worse.”

  “Then let’s move,” I say, and punctuate the remark by dashing towards the door.

  Once again we’re under the white-beige sky, running towards the giant garden. As we leave, our exit slides shut behind us. Locks us out of a place I never want to be again. Ahead, I see that the shuttle that took us here is gone, and so it’s a plain blank stone courtyard leading to the garden. We run across it, not sparing a second for conversation. All our breath goes to our lungs, to our feet.

  It occurs to me that we have nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide, nor to go.

  I wave at Viera and Malo to stop as soon as we get a little ways into the garden, when we’re surrounded by strange looking plants that, now, seem more eerie. Their jagged edges and strange flowers loom over us, the ground under our feet is a prickly, sticky sort of soil. A green fuzz instead of grass or leaves. A tilted rush of homesickness infiltrates my mind and I push it away, an act I’m getting better and better at as home becomes a place I’ll never see again.

  “I don’t want to keep running without a plan,” I say to my friends.

  Viera and Malo, for their part, are holding up reasonably well. All of us have a few scratches, tears and cuts we received from the fighting or garden thorns, but we’re standing, alive.

  “Getting away from here seems like a pretty good plan,” Viera offers.

  “To where? Back to Nasiya?” I say. “Even if we knew how to get there, they won’t be happy. We’d wind up back in that same prison, or worse. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sticking a Sevora in our heads either.”

  “Can we find the creature? The one that broke us out?” Malo says.

  “Oh yeah, the one that dumped us right off to these monsters?” Viera replies. “You think it will do anything different the next time?”

  “No, it had to give us up,” I say. “At least it tried to rescue us. Give me a moment and I’ll try to find its group in the Cache. I think they called it ‘Dawn’?”

  “This garden is not the place to do your digging,” Viera says and glances up.

  Not that I need the sight of the shuttle to tell me it’s coming. There’s plenty of whining, whooshing noise. Probably that same Flaum crew, returning to end our troubles.

  So once again we take off running. Dashing through the plants for what seems like forever. What pursuit there is, we never see. We just go and go and go, and I lose track of where we are. The plants eventually give way to dark metal structures, to broad streets and thousands of eyes, most of whom watch us, their gaze pushing us down dark alleys and into corners where we think we can fight.

  Where I hope we can be safe, though I know we aren’t.

  8 Junkyard’s Rest

  The only thing to do is take the Ooblot’s offer. D’Rascale wants them to do nothing more than roam the casino’s floor, looking imposing. Sax finds a flash of his teeth, a single raised claw is all that’s needed to defuse most fights well before they start. Any that aren’t convinced take a single whack of his tail to fall in line.

  The monotony gives Sax time to turn over Evva’s accusation. Time to decide what’s gone wrong, to know who to trust, and he comes up with blanks., There’s no real reason why, he thinks, the Amigga would turn on such a decorated Oratus. No real reason to brand her a traitor and want her dead.

  Then again, she’s escaped. Evva’s on the run, which means she must have known this was coming. Is that why she told Sax and Bas to safeguard the humans? To not trust the Amigga?

  There’s only one certainty in all of this - Sax and Bas won’t find anything on Scrapper Station, so they need a way off.

  And one presents itself when Coorvin wanders into the casino. The Flaum looks notably heavier than when he was on Cobalt, and his scraggly gray fur is a more full silver. His eyes are brighter, and the Flaum doesn’t shrink away when Sax notices he’s there. Doesn’t do anything more than smile when Sax clomps to tower over him.

  “You’re still here,” Sax says by way of a greeting.

  “Plake decided her crew could use a rest,” Coorvin replies. “And she’s still holding most of the food meant for Cobalt. She has to find a buyer, and there’s going to be more options here than flying around at random.”

  “How close is she to finding one?”

  Coorvin shakes his head. “I’m the new one on the crew. They don’t tell me much, and, after so many cycles with the Amigga, I’m fine being left alone.”

  “Listen, Coorvin,” Sax says. “We need a way off this station. To the Chorus, or one of the closer worlds.”

  “You’re asking me to help you get closer to the Amigga?”

  “I’m telling you,” Sax hisses. “There are bigger concerns than your feelings here.”

  Coorvin, though, slants his eyes towards Sax, crosses his furry claws in front of his chest. “Sax, I’m not the one you want to be ordering around. I’m back in relatively polite society, and I’ll be treated like it.”

  “I don’t have time for that,” Sax says. “How can we get passage on your ship?”

  “There have to be easier options?”

  “We don’t have money,” Sax replies. “Which means we need connections.”

  “So your plan is to try and get back on board the ship with the captain that sold you into this position in the first place?”

  “My plan is to get that captain alone, and use my claws to convince her of the necessity of my position.” Sax leans in close to Coorvin. “I saved you from that monster, Coorvin. All I’m asking now is an opening. Some information that will let Bas and I try to solve our problem.”

  At this last, Coorvin relents. “This is what I get for waning to throw a few chits on the tables. If you want to start a dialog, go to the Junkyard’s Rest - Agra-Red and a couple of the others like to go there after their shifts are over. Get them on your side, and maybe Plake will relent.”

  “Thank you,” Sax replies, then straightens, walks away from Coorvin.

  Wouldn’t be smart to clue too many in on his relationship with the Flaum. Scrapper Station would have a lot of people interested in what the Oratus were doing, and Sax wants no part of their meddling.

  He’ll have enough blood on his claws already.

  D’Rascale has them working opposite shifts, so that there’s one Oratus present on the floor at all times. At first, the Ooblot thought he could confine Sax and Bas to their quarters when not working, but a sufficient show of Sax’s teeth convinced the slime otherwise.

  So it’s not long before Sax gets his chance to investigate the Junkyard’s Rest and the rest of the station.

  Outside the casino is Scrapper Station’s nexus - the large central ball around which the rest of the station spindles off of in various spokes. Cheaper to build a station like this and have it spin to generate some gravi
ty than any other method. Even stations on the fringe of civilization, like this one, have some standards: every spoke is dominated by a particular type of purpose. From the Nexus, Sax counts seven of them, with two explicitly designated for living areas. Two more for docking bays and shipping.

  Which leaves three for general commercial and entertainment, along with the space already used for the Nexus. The central ball consists of four main avenues that crisscross the structure, meeting up at various points. Sax walks towards the closest one, tracking the species he’s seeing. Looking for the ones that might be disposed to a bit of chemical relaxation, and, thereby, interrogation.

  That proves to be a difficult challenge - Scrapper Station is a far fling from the Amigga-run domains Sax is used to. Most of the people here, regardless of their species, look like they’re clinging to life. Many wear motley rags, or patched together bits of garbage. Those who look nicer tend to display miners and other weapons out in the open. Sax didn’t notice this in the casino, where automated scanners force everyone entering to disarm themselves.

  It’s a side of the galaxy Sax hasn’t seen before.

  But, despite the appearances, the species are stopping in the various stores, whether buying weapons, scrap, or any number of other goods. Including ones outside the bounds of legality, something Sax would have reacted to until the Amigga’s power lost its hold on him.

  That, Sax supposes, is the most glaring lesson of this dive into the rest of the galaxy. He’s never held much love for the Amigga, for their distant and seemingly arbitrary demands, but he can understand working towards galactic peace. Some sort of prosperity. But this? This can’t be the ideal. What the Oratus and Vincere are fighting for.

  On his left, Sax passes by one of the large lifts to the residential spokes. Three separate elevators made to shuttle people up the spoke and out to the fringes, pulled by thick cables. A cluster of Teven gaggle together outside of them now, chattering about some sort of business deal. Sax doesn’t care, moves on.

  The first sign he has of Junkyard’s Rest comes courtesy of a pair of Vyphen, looking haggard and tired, arguing about where to stop in for a sniff. Sax isn’t familiar with the term, but among the list of locales, Sax hears the name he’s looking for. At the same time, the Vyphen realize that he’s listening.

  “What’re you standing there for, big guy?” the closer one asks him, a blueish creature with wilting yellow feathers. “We’re not causing any trouble.”

  “I’m not here for you,” Sax replies. “But I’m looking for the place you’re speaking of. The Junkyard’s Rest. Tell me where it is.”

  The two Vyphen look at each other, then the blue one turns back to him. “Up the third spoke. Ride it all the way to the end. It’s the only place there.”

  Sax gives them a single nod, then moves on. He’s seen the fear in their eyes, the tensing of their muscles.

  It makes him smile.

  Sax despises low gravity that increases the further he gets from the Nexus. The feeling that when he lifts a claw that it’s not going to come down right away, that his leg will keep on rising until he puts forth effort to stop it. Even though the air is recycled and purified, Sax feels like he has to work harder to keep it down, to maneuver his body out of the lift and into the only possible option at the far end of the spoke.

  The Junkyard’s Rest.

  The entrance is a wide, flat square that appears to have, at one point, been used as a freight exit. Too big for normal people, the bar has since filled it with glowing holograms displaying the prices of various specials and menu items.

  None of which Sax is remotely interested in.

  To help with navigation, all around this level and, Sax is sure, inside the bar as well, are posts coming up a little over a meter. He uses his claws to grab one and propel himself into the bar past a pair of nervous Flaum bouncers. As if they’d ever try and stop an Oratus.

  Inside, Junkyard’s Rest proves a slave to its name, and Sax wonders if its design has as much to do with the low cost of, well, scrap. Tables and chairs of every height are bolted to the floor and are made from random parts. Sax can see long benches carved from the wings of old fighters, while turtle stools for the fluid bodies of Whelk and Ooblots look like they’ve been made from rocket nacelles.

  This all goes with the bar too - itself a long counter covered in polished scrap and serviced by robotic arms. Cameras project options down onto the tables, where patrons touch the hologram of what they want, and it’s soon after flown to them by delivery drones.

  Aside from conversations, the background is home to a low synthetic pulse beat, the sort of noise that doesn’t cause unstable effects for some of the more sensitive species.

  And then there’s the Junkyard Rest’s crowning achievement: a giant window along the very end of the spoke that looks out into the floating debris field around Scrapper Station. Lit by the reflection from the surrounding planet, the debris serves as endless entertainment as they bounce and clash with one another, occasionally interrupted by a passing ship.

  What Sax doesn’t see, though, is his target. Agra-Red isn’t here, and Sax is drawing stares. He’ll have to do something soon, or the wrong sort of attention is going to come his way.

  So, for the first time in his life, Sax goes up to a bar.

  Not a soul comes to serve him. Who would? He’s a big, gray-scaled weapon that’s still bearing plenty of scars from the burns on Cobalt and cuts from so many earlier battles that they all blend together to create a horrifying story.

  It doesn’t help that Sax keeps flashing his teeth at anyone who looks at him. There’s a protocol to be followed here - namely, that prey should understand their place, and Sax considers everyone in here prey.

  “You want something?” says a voice.

  Sax looks for the source and doesn’t see it, only row after row of bottles, box after box of stimulants, and plenty of inhalable packs.

  “I’m using a speaker,” the voice says, and then Sax sees the holes, right there in the countertop in front of him. “If you’re going to order, use the menu in front of you. If you’re not, I’d ask you to—” Sax manages to find the speaker, a beefy Flaum behind the bar, who meets Sax’s eyes and gulps hard. “To, uh, take as much time as you need.”

  Sax turns to the menu, a litany of options projected on the surface in front of him. Most of them are unappealing: injections meant to swim throughout a Whelk’s body, targeted to stimulate and numb various nerve centers, coatings that, slipped down a Teven’s central core, would drive the creature into oblivious ecstasy.

  Sax scrolls through the options, writing off each one in turn. He’s not here to distort his mind, the very idea of which nauseates him. At last he happens upon the very end of the list, populated with less dangerous things like water and nutrient goop. He picks both of those.

  Behind him, Sax feels a stool begin to rise up out of the floor and, with his left leg, he kicks at the thing until its mechanical brain gets the idea that Sax has no desire to sit.

  Then he resumes his observation. Still no sign of the Whelk, though Sax knows he’s only been in the bar for a few minutes.

  Those minutes stretch, and Sax orders one water after another, goes through several light meals of nutrient goop, and notices an ever-expanding clear area around him as patrons decide the potential danger of being near an Oratus isn’t worth a close-up look.

  Not that Sax minds.

  He watches the junk spin in space, traces the trails of ships leaping in and out of the system. It’s peaceful in its own way, and Sax starts to understand why people might prefer these sorts of places. A chance for meditative nothing in a crowded universe.

  “You’re not who I expected to find here,” says a confused voice, one Sax recognizes.

  His hunt is over.

  Agra-Red stands looking at Sax, a straight line spread across his wide, crimson face, shadowed as ever by his helmet. The Whelk’s embedded miner is still there, but Sax notices the battery pack pow
ering it has disappeared - a seeming concession to the rules of the place. Behind the Whelk stands Engee, whose sticking a single eye out from the top of her carapace and turning it around.

  “I’m here for you.” Sax isn’t a fan of subtlety.

  “Really.” Agra-Red sidles up to the bar next to Sax, then half-turns towards Engee. “Get whatever you want, I’m buying.”

  “You don’t have to,” Engee replies, but joins him at the bar anyway, sitting to his left.

  “She modded my miner,” Agra-Red says to Sax. “Boosted the power enough that it’ll burn through even your scales.”

  Sax looks at himself. The scars. “Already had that happen enough times.”

  “You’re still alive, so obviously not.”

  Agra-Red eyes the glass of water on the bar in front of Sax, laughs, then punches in an order for some drug Sax doesn’t know.

  “I need your ship,” Sax says.

  “It’s not my ship.” Agra-Red replies, turning to Engee. “You order anything yet?”

  “Can I trust you not to leave me here?”

  “I’ll get you back. Provided this one here doesn’t tear me apart.”

  “You’re going to tear Agra-Red apart?” Engee pokes her eye-stalk around Agra-Red’s slug body.

  “Not yet,” Sax replies.

  “See? He’s friendly.” One of Engee’s tiny arms shoots out from her carapace and slaps something on the bar in front of her.

  “Friendly. You ever been called that, Oratus?” Agra-Red says, turning back to Sax.

  “By my friends.”

  “Where are they?” Agra-Red does a show of looking around the bar. “Not here?”

  “Working. The job you sold us into.”

  “Again, not my call. You’re confusing me for Plake, Oratus. Take up your issues with the captain, not the crew.”