* * *
After a rushed meal, Thanatos and Kira were on their way toward the hangars. As promised, there was a ship awaiting their arrival, and by the looks of it, it was brand new. This suspicion was confirmed once they entered the cockpit. There, on the pilot’s seat, Kira discovered a note that read:
“To Kira:
No council member should be without their own shuttle. If you take care of this ship, it will take care of you.
I hope you like it.
-Velion
P.S. Try not to crash it”
Kira couldn’t believe her eyes. Was this really happening? Her very own space ship? She showed the note to Thanatos. A strange look passed over his face and quietly he said, “Congratulations. Not many are lucky enough to own their own shuttles, so I guess I had better show you how to fly this thing.”
After spending several minutes showing Kira how to use the controls, Thanatos explained that the majority of the ship’s functions were self-controlled; even taking off from a planet or landing on one could be left to autopilot. Despite this feature, he forced Kira to manually take off, saying, “In case something ever happens to the autopilot you should have at least some practice.”
The feeling of flying the ship was exhilarating, and despite the fact that her wild flying nearly gave Thanatos heart failure a couple of times, they made it out of Tython’s atmosphere unscathed. He showed her how to program the navigation system and how to initiate a jump to subspace. He explained that the computer would always calculate the jump for her, that way there was no worry of accidently jumping into the middle of a star or coming out too close to a black hole, a thought that made Kira shudder.
Before she knew it, she had successfully programmed the computer and they were on their way to the Gaius system. Because the ship was new, the jump took less time than expected. “Must be the new Marc VII engine. Aren’t you a lucky girl?” Thanatos said with the same strange look passing over his face. “I bet there are only a handful of ships that could go as fast as this one.”
“Really? You think so?” Kira exclaimed, still reeling from the excitement of having her own ship.
“Really. It will take a couple hours to get there, so I’m going to close my eyes and rest. I’d suggest you do the same but I think it would be better for you to read this.” He tossed her a large and heavy book that said “Owner’s Manual” on the cover. With a sly smile he leaned his seat back and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he was asleep, leaving Kira alone with her new study material.
The ship ride was boring and the excitement of the owner’s manual wore off rather quickly, leaving Kira with nothing to do but stare out at the passing colors of subspace. It was magnificent to behold, now that she understood what it meant to travel in subspace. Even though she didn’t completely grasp the physics that it required, Master Yu-On had done a decent job of explaining it to her. It was amazing to her that the ship could bend space in such a way that traveling impossible distances only took a few short hours.
She imagined telling her father about it, but realized that he probably wouldn’t be able to understand, not really. None of the people from home would be able to grasp the things she now understood. In some ways she missed the naivety, as everything was starting to lose its mystery, but she knew it was better to understand reality than to believe in mysticism.
In many ways, if she went back to Earth possessing her newfound understanding along with her armor, she really would be like a god to them, able to do and know things they’d never dreamed of. She wondered what it would be like to go home, after seeing and learning so much. Would it still feel like home? Would she still love the things she had once enjoyed, or would all of it seem too simple for her? Living on Tython for the better part of a year had revealed a beauty and wonder that she didn’t think Earth could match. There were no expansive cities, or tall buildings. There were no flying vehicles or technologies of luxury and ease. There wasn’t even reading or writing.
And what of her sister? Had she also spent enough time around the Gods that Earth would lose its appeal for her as well? Kira doubted it. Every chance Kaya got, she talked or asked about home. It was a little irritating, if Kira was honest with herself, but she never tried to stop her. She understood that Kaya needed to hold on to the thoughts of home in order to cope with all the changes. If Kira hadn’t been so close to adulthood she might have felt the same, but there was something so liberating about all of it. No longer was she doomed to live the boring and repetitive lifestyle of her village. No longer did she have to listen to the elders drone on and on about the spirits. Now she knew the spirits. Now she was a spirit, soaring through the heavens in her very own ship.
She smiled to herself as she thought about the freedom that having her own ship would mean. Velion would of course place restrictions on when she could leave or where she could go, but that wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d be a full member of the council and would be free to do as she pleased. She could travel to every corner of the twelve kingdoms if she wanted to. Maybe she would even travel to some other, unexplored places. Maybe she could discover a new planet with a new civilization on it! The possibilities seemed endless.
Her wandering thoughts were interrupted by a beeping noise coming from the console in front of her. Unsure of what it meant, she reached over and shook Thanatos by the shoulder. Yawning and looking a little lost, he asked, “Wha… What is it? Are we there?”
“I don’t know, the console just started beeping. I think it means we are close.”
Thanatos gave her a confused look and turned to examine the console. After a few seconds he said, “It looks like we are ten minutes away from our destination. There is no telling where Aeria and Deimos might be right now so I suggest we drop out of subspace sooner than that. Just press that symbol right there. It will ask you if you are sure; just hit yes.”
Kira pressed the symbol as instructed and then hit yes when it asked if she was sure she wanted to drop from subspace. Almost immediately the ship slowed and the familiar color patters of subspace faded away to a deep, dark ocean of stars.
Thanatos showed her how to use the radar system and after a few seconds of searching they discovered two emergency beacons emitting a signal some distance behind them. “It seems we went too far. No trouble, we’ll just have to double back to pick them up. Do you think you can set a heading to catch up to them?” he asked.
Feeling unsure of herself, Kira worked at the console and after nearly sending them back into subspace twice, she was able to properly set the coordinates. Once she told the computer to “execute,” the space ship burst to life as the engines rotated the ship 180 degrees before propelling them towards the beacons. At first Kira felt as though she was going to be sick from the force of the accelerators but a moment later the inertial dampeners compensated for the engines, and everything went back to normal.
Fifteen minutes later they had nearly caught up with the two emergency pods. Thanatos hailed the two of them and it didn’t take long for the three vessels to meet. Having read enough of the owner’s manual to know that there were two docking hatches on the ship, Kira had the three vessels hooked together in no time at all.
Deimos was the first to make his way through the hatch, and with a wide grin he greeted Thanatos saying, “Nice ship! You have no idea how glad I am to see you. I’m not sure I could have survived another day in that cramp emergency pod. Maybe I’ll have to talk with Aithos about making those a little more spacious.” Thanatos agreed enthusiastically. Deimos seemed genuinely relieved at being out of the pod until his eyes drifted to Kira. With a severe change of expression he asked, “What is she doing here?”
Thanatos turned to look at Kira as if he’d forgotten who was behind him. “Oh, your father insisted I bring her along. You know, show her the ropes of flying a ship and such. Why?” Deimos didn’t answer; instead he moved towards the other docking hatch and helped Aeria on to the shuttle. With a grave look he nodded t
owards Kira.
Aeria turned to look and with a flash of anger she pushed past Thanatos and headed straight for Kira. Grabbing her by the shoulders, Aeria pushed Kira up against the hull of the shuttle and demanded, “What do you know about what happened on Gaius 5?!”
Kira blinked and squirmed, trying to escape the death grip, but it was no use. “What’s your problem? Let go of me! I don’t know anything about Gaius 5!”
“Don’t lie to me girl, I’ll end you if I have to!” Aeria hissed with a wild look in her eyes.
“I’m not lying! Let go of me!” Kira’s anger bubbled and without realizing her strength shoved Aeria as hard as she could, sending her stumbling backwards into the other side of the ship.
“Stop it! Both of you! What’s this about?” Thanatos yelled, forcing his way between the two of them.
“You tell me! You’re the one who’s so close to this human,” Aeria spat.
“What? Wait a second, just slow down. We don’t know anything about what happened on Gaius 5, that’s why we were sent to pick you up. Velion wants to know what happened down there.”
“What happened was that we were set up! Someone destroyed that town before we even arrived and then tried to kill us by blowing up the supply depot! Not to mention destroying my ship! And your girl here knows something about it!” Aeria lunged at Kira again, but Thanatos was able to hold her back.
“Just calm down! How could she possibly know anything about this? She’s been confined to the Palace until now,” Thanatos protested.
Aeria seemed to relent, throwing her arms up in the air. “Then explain to me why the whelp who tried to blow me up, gave me a warning about her!”
Thanatos gaped at her, and then with a bewildered look turned to peer at Kira. Kira didn’t understand what was happening but she certainly didn’t like being attacked. It took a great deal of composure not to go right back after Aeria, but she knew it would only make things worse. They had a message about me? she wondered. How did they even know who I was?
“Wait… what warning? I don’t understand,” Thanatos shook his head.
“Aren’t you listening?! Clean out your ears, fool; whoever set us up said she was part of it!” Aeria shouted, starting to lose her composer again.
“Well, not exactly,” Deimos interjected, causing Aeria to shift her infuriated gaze to him. “The lesser one said that the person who set us up gave him a message: ‘to beware, that the humans aren’t who you think they are.’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean,” he finished, trying to ignore Aeria’s wild look.
“Aren’t who we think they are? How did this lesser one even know about them? I know they’ve been on the news but no one outside of the council knows that they are from Earth.” Thanatos looked perplexed.
“That’s what he said, and since he swallowed poison before we could interrogate him, that’s all we know,” Deimos shrugged, eyeing Kira warily.
“Poison? You mean he killed himself? Have you ever heard of a lesser one doing that before?” Thanatos asked but Deimos didn’t respond. He just shook his head and moved to sit down on one of the passenger chairs.
“We need to get back to Tython as soon as possible. Velion needs to hear this. I’ll take us home,” Thanatos finished, moving over to the navigation computer and putting in the coordinates. A moment later the ship made the jump to subspace and was heading back towards Tython.
“You better hope you’re telling the truth, girl. I swear, if I find out that you had something to do with this, I will destroy you,” Aeria glared at Kira before moving to sit in one of the other passenger seats.
“I didn’t and you couldn’t even if you tried,” Kira spat back at her. Aeria looked livid, but decided to let the boast go unanswered.