We were ready to try the next closest planet, and hoped it wasn’t as depressing and hopeless as the last one. I was lost in thought, wondering about the battle back there, when our systems finally showed another planet. My heart sank into my gut. The last thing I wanted was to find more destruction like we’d just seen, but as we approached it became clear that was far from the case.

  This planet was full of life. Now we had to find out which side that life was on.

  51

  Approaching the next planet was a new experience altogether. It wasn’t like the last one, or like stepping into the random Nihilist planet we’d stumbled into before, which had been all dark and dreary. Looking through the display from our ship, what we saw caused us all to stare in awe. Tall trees of luminescent colors, floating pink and blue circles that reminded me of bubbles, but seemed to be made of light more than anything else. A fluffy layer of white that looked like snow covered the ground, and when we were close, it scattered about, giving the impression of it being more like dandelion seeds.

  “What’re we looking for?” I scanned the horizon. As far as the eye could see, it was more of that white fluff, more of those floating balls of light and wispy trees.

  “Not that!” Navani shouted, swerving to the left and selecting a bleeping incoming projectile, so as to engage evasive maneuvers.

  “Missile?” Threed asked, sitting up straight and staring with wide, mismatched eyes.

  “Looks like, no…” Navani highlighted the screen to display an enlarged image of the projectile. It looked like the other balls of light, but faster and larger. The other balls of light started moving our way too, I noticed as Navani cursed and pulled back up and to the right instead.

  “Whatever’s down there isn’t fond of visitors,” she said, and then shot forward as the large balls gave chase, all picking up speed and intensity.

  “Please don’t tell me we actually made it through that Per-Neter thing only to get destroyed by a bunch of bubbles,” Sakurai said with a laugh. “The fucking irony!”

  “Not bubbles,” Navani said. “Definitely some sort of weapon controlled from the surface, and I’m going to get us down there.”

  “Through this?” I asked, looking at the images that showed the incoming light display, reminding me of something between a fireworks show and a mass jellyfish movement.

  “It might be our only chance at finding the enemy, and therefore the Tier Ones,” Navani countered.

  I glanced back to Sacrada, who’d been silent, and she quickly looked away. Had she been staring at me for some reason? The thought made me laugh, considering the situation. Then again, it kind of made sense. If we were in a possibly deadly situation, it was possible she was starting to consider what might have been, even have doubts about not moving fast enough to get with me. She’d said she was down, but maybe now she wished she’d done it right then and there.

  Past her, Sakurai gave me a curious frown, and I realized I’d been grinning like a child at a churro stand.

  Navani flew the ship down, dodging the light as best she could, using the ship’s shields and throwing out some of her own when needed to take the brunt of the force. More than once we shook and warnings flashed on the screen, but then Navani had us down and between the trees. The light balls followed, but by zigging and zagging through the trees she was able to avoid too many explosions, though several trees were left in flames.

  The ship careened over a landscape blanketed in the white fluff, Navani angling the vessel toward the side of a hill in hopes of there being less of the stuff to give us trouble. It didn’t end up being a concern though, because as Navani lowered the ship gently down the air movement caused the fluff to disperse, leaving a circle of yellow ground exposed.

  We waited a moment, checking all the displays for signs of an incoming attack, but when none came Navani ran a scan of the atmosphere which came back as habitable. Threed made a replica of herself and sent her out first, in case there was a trap, and we watched as it ran over to the side of the hill, glanced around, and then gave us a thumbs up, as I’d shown the team.

  But then suddenly, two seconds later, her head exploded and the real Threed let out a yelp, gripping her head as a shot of pain ran through her.

  “Dammit!” she said.

  Navani was on top of it, sending a barrage of shots from one of our turrets that cut down two trees and dropping a line of three figures that popped up, trying to charge us.

  “They’re hostile, but we don’t know if they’re actually with the Nihilists,” Sacrada pointed out.

  “Since they blew up my head—or my replica’s head—I’d say that’s reason enough to say fuck them.” Threed was up, hands on the display, scanning for more of them. “Show yourselves, you little fucks.”

  “Can you get an image of the ones you hit?” Sacrada asked.

  Navani adjusted the display, zooming in with part of it on the corpses. They were actually feline in nature. All three of them—possibly two female, one male, judging by the feminine features of the first two. Oddly, not bad looking, but then again maybe seeing that my brother was with Charm—a fox lady—was opening my mind to this idea. The difference here was their noses were more catlike, and they seemed to have a very light layer of actual fur. Not that it mattered, as I had enough ladies… and these cat ones were dead.

  Even if they were alive, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about recognizing a certain attraction about them.

  “There!” Sacrada said, joining Threed at the display now. “The Mark of the Beast.”

  “Six, six, six?” I asked, staring, confused.

  “You’ve never heard of this?” Sacrada asked, and then laughed. “Drew, everyone knows the mark of the beast is a circle with two evil eyes and horns, branded right there onto the sides of their necks.”

  “Everyone in your galaxy,” I countered.

  “Why would it be three sixes? That’s stupid. Anyway, it means they might or might not be with the Nihilists, but they’re definitely not friends of the Citadel.”

  “But how would the cult have spread so far out here?” Navani asked, shaking her head in confusion. “Unless…”

  “…the Nihilists have him on their side, and are using that fact to bring in recruits to their army.”

  “Wasn’t one of the Elders a cult member?” Sacrada asked. “I thought I remembered something like that.”

  “She looked just like them,” Navani said. “But no way was she involved with the beast, so I’m going take a wild guess and say these three are connected to her in some way.”

  “There are more cat people out there?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t be many,” Threed said, pouting. “Too bad, because I’ve always been curious. Do they purr during orgasm, do you think?”

  “Threed,” Navani scolded her with a shake of her head. “The better question would be are there more of them nearby, and—”

  “Oh yeah, so I can find out!”

  “No, so we know if there’ll be any further attacks.”

  “Oh.” Threed pouted again, then grinned and gave me a thumbs up. “Just joking.”

  I nodded, frowning, and turned back to Navani. “So, this cult. If he’s bringing people over, is that such a big deal?”

  “Hard to say,” she admitted. “But he’s powerful, damn powerful. Back in our galaxy he had a planet that the Elders forbade anyone from going near, completely off limits, and nobody even dared to interfere in his doings. If the Fleet of the Beast ventured out too far, we’d send ships to intercept and stop their space pirating, but otherwise, we knew better than to declare all-out war.”

  “Meaning, if his entire fleet is here we could be in trouble.”

  “But we also have to ask if this is our final destination. It seemed to be the starting point on the Per-Neter, meaning where the enemy that we intercepted it from had originated. But does that mean we’ve found the enemy’s lair? Hard to say.”

  “Scan complete,” Sacrada said, and we turned to see that she’d been working with a section of the display to analyze the surrounding landscape. It showed the hills went inward ahead. “If we can move the ship there, it might be a good location to stow it out of sight while we take a look around.”

  “Agreed.” Navani started up the ship. “Keep a lookout for any sign of trouble.”

  “But maybe don’t shoot them down this time,” Sacrada said. “Actually…” She adjusted the screen back to the cat ladies, scanning them, then grinned. “Hey, look. One’s still alive.”

  “Oooh, torture to get some answers?” Threed asked.

  Sometimes I forgot about her less-than-saintly past and thinner moral line from before our journey crossed paths.

  “Let’s see if she’ll talk without any of that,” I suggested, earning me an approving glance from Navani.

  “And see if they even speak our language,” Navani pointed out. “Our translators might work, but you never know, especially when considering where we are.”

  Considering the fact that we had no idea where we were other than at some point on a star map, that made sense. It didn’t worry me, though. We were starting to become well versed at this whole idea of exploring new worlds, and nothing short of a space dragon would really worry me at this point.

  “We bring her in, then get this ship over to the hills,” I said, already going for the door.

  “Leave it to me,” Threed said, and then made two replicas of me, adding a wink. “Or rather, you but not you, if you see what I mean.”

  “Actually, smart,” Sacrada noted. “Why put ourselves at risk when we can do that?”

  “Thank you,” Threed said with a curtsy.

  Navani lowered the ramp and my two replicas charged out, the rest of us in the ship with weapons ready in case there was trouble. A few moments of tense waiting later, and the two were charging back up with the cat lady held between them. She had blood spots on her side and leg and was moving in and out of consciousness.

  “This doesn’t look promising,” Sakurai said, voicing what the rest of us were thinking. “But… I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Your spirit familiar?” I asked as the two of us followed my replicas, with Threed, to the small room that worked as a med-bay on the ship. Sacrada and Navani stayed back to keep watch and start maneuvering the ship toward the hills as we’d discussed.

  “It isn’t as strong on others, but should be able to help,” Sakurai explained. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  The replicas had the cat lady on the bed. She wore a tight-fitting outfit of red with blue cloth draped around her, the mark of the beast standing out in black against the light layer of gold fur. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she tried to sit up, grabbing me by the wrist as her eyes met mine—large, turquoise, and with that black slit of a pupil like cats have. Freaky, but even more so when she spoke and I had no problem understanding it.

  “Which side?” she demanded, closing her eyes for a moment as pain went through her, then looking at me again she repeated the question. “Which side?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  She fell back, closing her eyes and groaning, and I was glad to see the light emanating from Sakurai as she began calling on her healing familiar to do its thing.

  I knelt down next to the bed, so that my face was at the cat lady’s level, and said, “Which side are you on?”

  She shook her head. “You first.”

  I watched as the light creature entered the first wound, still not sure I’d ever get used to this concept. Hell, she was effectively our prisoner, so what harm would it do to tell her?

  “We’re here to find the Tier One supers, namely one Apollo, and maybe Hadrian… and another super named Lamb.”

  The last name caused a twitch on her face.

  “To hurt them, or help them?” she asked.

  “We’re on their side,” I said. “So whatever group is fighting them, or holding them captive… if they’re still alive… is our enemy.”

  A glow came strong from her belly now, and she looked down with confusion and said a word I didn’t understand but I took to be a curse word, and then glared at me. “You’re like them? Sorcerers of space?”

  “You didn’t tell me which side you’re on.”

  “The side of your enemy,” she said. “So go on, keep going. Finish me.”

  I laughed.

  “We’re not killing you, stupid,” Threed chimed in, leaning down and staring at her, then running a hand along her cheek. “We’re healing you.”

  “That…” She ground her teeth, looking up at me again as a shot of pain went through her. “That… doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if you knew us.”

  “But you…” She arched her back, eyes rolling up for a moment as she moaned, this time as if great pleasure had gone through her. The light from her wound was starting to fade. When she was back, she seemed to be blushing.

  Threed laughed. “Was that like a mini-orgasm?”

  The cat lady’s eyes flickered over to her with annoyance, then came back to me. “You killed my sisters.”

  “You all attacked us,” I said. “But… yes. And I’m sorry for that.”

  “On that note,” Threed leaned in, hand going to the cat lady’s throat. “Is it your habit to go around killing anything you see?”

  “Habit? No.” The cat lady felt her side, astonished, and pushed herself up to her elbows to watch as the spirit familiar moved down to her leg. Her eyes went wide as it started to work down there, but she said, “Orders. We’ve been warned someone might show up. Every group has had the orders passed down. They even had images of ships similar to yours.”

  “Wait,” Sakurai said, pausing in her healing to run a hand through her hair, nervously brushing along one of her small horns. “Were you told to let them know when we arrived? Did you set off any alarms or…?”

  The cat lady turned to her now, eyes moving to the horns with interest. “You’re… with them?”

  “By ‘them’ you mean these two?” Sakurai nodded. “Of course. Now, answer my question.”

  “No alarm,” she admitted. “I was about to turn and run off for that very purpose, while my sisters stayed to fight.”

  “Your sisters—” I started, but she cleared her throat and held up a hand.

  “Not my real sisters, to be clear. It’s what we call each other, those of us serving together.”

  “Ah. Again, we didn’t come to attack them, necessarily. But if you’re on the side of our enemy, well… We could use your help.”

  She actually laughed, and looked down in surprise, holding her side. She moved the material aside, exposing smooth skin without the gold fur, skin that didn’t have holes in it anymore.

  “Magic!” she exclaimed.

  “Superpowers,” I said. “Not quite the same.”

  “But maybe not so different,” she replied.

  “True,” I supposed aloud. “You have a good point.”

  “So you saved me in hopes of me helping you all?” she asked, then shook her head. “Won’t happen. I took an oath, and if there’s one thing everyone knows about my kind, it’s that we’re loyal to a fault.”

  “We’re not asking you to betray your sisters,” Sakurai cut in. “Just whatever higher power you all are serving.”

  “In fact,” I added, “the more you help us, the easier it will be, I imagine, to avoid your sisters and therefore ensure no more of them need to die. Think it over. We’re about to move out. We can do so with you at our side, or tied up and unconscious here on the ship.”

  She pursed her lips, considering me. “I’ll think about it.”

  “And your name?” I asked before turning to report in to Navani.

  “My sisters call me Feruz.”

  I nodded to her and headed out but found Navani in the hall, only then noticing the ship had ceased its movement. Quickly updating her on the situation, she told me our sensors were picking up movement just off planet.

  “You think she’s not telling the truth about the alarm?” I asked.

  Navani nodded. “She’d have no reason to tell us if a message had gotten out.”

  “Something about her, though,” I said, glancing back. “I don’t know, but she gives me the feeling that she’s not drinking the Kool-Aid, or at least not as much as some.”

  “Kool-Aid?”

  “Oh, yeah. That didn’t make it through to the colonies?” I chuckled. “Regardless, she might not be fully on board with the enemy’s plans is all I meant.” At her look, I added, “I’m not saying we should trust her, but that maybe we might be able to find a way to get some useful information out of her. Possibly win her over to our side.”

  “Holy shit,” Navani said, her eyes flashing more blue than normal. “You… you do realize she has a cat tail, right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, her fur, and those eyes—yeah, I’ve seen her kind before, I know how it works. That does it for you, huh?”

  “Navani, you’re missing the point.”

  “What, you don’t find her attractive?” Navani was trying not to smile.

  “Are you messing with me?”

  She laughed. “Of course I am. And it’s not like I’d have a problem with you thinking she’s hot—their kind puts out some sort of pheromone or something that attracts males. That and, if you can get over the animal characteristics, the fact is that she is actually quite a looker.”

  I was getting kind of annoyed that she’d brought it to that level. “What’s the plan?”

  “Down to business, I like that.” Navani wiped the smile from her face, glancing back to see Sacrada coming.

  “The healing went okay?” Sacrada asked.

  “Good as new, I think,” I replied.

  “Then we stick to the plan,” Navani said. “We have to find their world, whether this is it or another nearby. Until then, we bring her with us.”