Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

She let out a loud gasp which sounded like a cry, recoiling at the memory of her first mission in the swamps of Monda. Her teammate and best friend since childhood, Eve, had suggested they wade through the marsh to get to the magicologists’ base faster. Crystil had a terrible gut feeling about it but went along with it.

They had gotten about twenty yards from the base when Eve screamed in pain. Crystil turned and saw Eve being dragged. She grabbed Eve and pulled, and for about three seconds, Crystil dragged her away from danger, but a horrifyingly large nakar lunged out of the swamp and swallowed Eve nearly whole, leaving only her hand. Crystil dropped the hand and ran to shore in terror, shaking, feeling entirely out of her league as a young teenage girl on her first mission. She broke down at the bank, crying for hours. Only the evening refocused her, reminding her to finish her mission if she didn’t want to join Eve.

She eventually made it home, but she could never go back to her family’s house, which stood next to Eve’s house.

When Crystil finished recounting the memory, she stood and walked over to Celeste. She put both of her hands on Celeste’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. Both women looked frightened.

“You can’t do that, Celeste.”

A long silence came as Crystil sought the strength for more words.

“You just… can’t, Celeste. OK? Just don’t.”

“I know, I panicked, I shouldn’t have, I—”

Crystil’s grip on Celeste tightened, not to dominate, but to calm.

“You made a mistake. You won’t make it again. I believe in you.”

Celeste swallowed, and what happened next shocked Crystil.

“I know. I won’t.”

Such a firm statement should have come from Cyrus. Not from the timid girl who reminded Crystil of herself from a decade ago. She loosened her grip, and she nodded in gratitude.

“Nine years ago, I lost someone close to me in a situation like this because we skirted orders. I don’t have many fears, but losing someone to a predator like this is one. Even in simulations, I feel like I’ll go into shock if I see it. So… I’m sorry if I overreacted.”

“You didn’t,” Celeste said, her voice sympathetic. “I understand now why you did that. I promise if there’s a way to do things, I won’t deviate, even if I’m afraid.”

Crystil finally smiled, as those words were words she’d yearned to hear since their first training simulation together.

“You’ll always feel fear. We all do. Even your brother. Even if he won’t admit it. But go past it. You will.”

“I will.”

With that, the two embraced. Crystilwalked toward Cyrus and gave the nod for him to line up next to his sister. She cleared her throat, paused to enter back into commander mode, and stood tall with her shoulders round and back straight.

“You may think that because we’ve left Monda, we will see no balicae, no pantera, and no nakar. And that may be the case. But it’s also just as likely the case that when we get to Anatolus, we’ll encounter creatures as dangerous, or maybe even more so, than the ones on Monda. You always have to assume the worst in these spots and assume you don’t know what the worst will be, because when you encounter a new land, you face new rules, new paradigms, and new dynamics. This is why I constantly harp on you both to follow the rules. The rules are designed to carry over to a variety of situations, even ones in which we don’t know anything. Maybe the rules will be wrong, but in the majority of tested cases, they are not. You also need to be mentally prepared for when you’re not physically prepared, such as when you don’t have weapons. This was a difficult simulation, created so that when we arrive, we can handle the worst. Though we did not complete it, I am confident that both of you have processed the necessary lessons.”

Both of them nodded without hesitation.
Exactly what I want to see.

“We will have a review after lunch, and we are scheduled to land shortly after. The planet will be entering its nocturnal phase soon after we land, so we will spend the night on board this ship. Come see me if you have any questions.”

With that, she left the room, listening as Cyrus whispered something inaudible to Celeste, who laughed. It made Crystil feel sad and envious that she did not have that level of connection with either Orthran.

The sadness vanished with a shake of the head, a smile, and a pretend offended thought when she heard Cyrus’ last words.

“… said that to you! She is human!”

I’ve always been human, Cyrus.

8

Cyrus walked into the dining hall with his sister by his side, starving for eggs and vegetables. He looked at the digital clock on the wall as his eggs cooked in the humming microwave.

It was 16:58. If what he had read was true, they had less than an hour until they entered into Anatolus’ gravitational pull. The young man felt like a great captain, exploring beyond the ventured skies and into lands that humans had not yet seen. He knew he could never—nor would ever—overthrow Crystil and become the true commander of
Omega One. But I should ask about a promotion. A raise to bacon and eggs instead of veggies and eggs.

The microwave dinged twice to signal it had finished. Cyrus pulled out the eggs and veggies, looked carefully, and yelled, “Ahah!” He turned to Celeste, who had the expectant grin of someone about to laugh.

“They made these eggs extra crispy! They’re finally upgrading our experience here!”

Cyrus sat down and shrugged as he shoved the first batch of eggs in his mouth.

“Real shame, too,” he said in between bites. “We’re landing in less—”

“Than an hour! I completely forgot!” Celeste said, putting her hands on the table.

She stood up without even excusing herself and walked away.

“Celeste! I gotta finish my food, I don’t want egg yolk hitting my face as we go down!” Cyrus yelled, chasing her to the cockpit as she took her seat to Crystil’s left.

The commander, as usual, sat in her seat confidently, looking at the black sea of space. He turned, and the view now had a beautiful blue pearl with a green diamond on the northern side taking up a decent portion of the glass.

“Anatolus,” Celeste said, nearly breathlessly. “Beautiful.”

“Our new home,” Crystil said. “Welcome, guys, we made it.”

Both women turned to Cyrus, but he hadn’t even touched his food since he had taken a seat. He just gawked at the planet and couldn’t stop thinking how much it looked like Monda. Roughly the same distance from its sun. By all accounts, relatively similar wildlife. He knew it wasn’t the case but indulged in the fantasy that civilization on Monda had just boomeranged them into space, and they had now returned. Their father would be waiting for him and Celeste, and Crystil could go back to bodyguarding instead of supervising.

But even from that distance, he could see what dissolved that illusion—the massive mountain at the tip of the land mass, jutting out like a monument. Cortanus had confirmed the mountain jutted nearly a hundred thousand feet into the sky, with the oxygen at the peak essentially the minimum to survive. Such a thing didn’t exist on Monda. Half of a thing didn’t even exist.

“We finally found the thing that shut my brother up,” Celeste said, which brought Crystil’s guard down and made her laugh. “How does time relate to what time we have on this ship?”

“When we land, we’ll be coming right as the planet shifts into nighttime,” Crystil said, clearing her throat. “Things will happen a bit quicker, as the globe’s rotation takes twenty-two hours. You will probably experience some time distortion, but I’m confident we’ll adjust to it.”

“Do we know what the ratio of day to night is right now?” Celeste asked.

Crystil strummed her fingers on her chair, in thought.

“Cortanus, think you’re gonna have to take over here,” Cyrus said.

“Right now, there are nine hours of daylight and thirteen hours of night,” the ship said.

Silence came as everyone’s minds racketed with competing voices reflecting on the trip, their memories, and what lay ahead. Cyrus had long thought that he would handle the journey the best of anyone. Celeste desperately missed their father and Monda and had gotten yanked away too young. At the very least, not getting a long goodbye probably left her unfulfilled. Crystil acted like she had fortified herself in a giant steel castle, but Cyrus knew enough of her story to know her scars weren’t on her body.

Now, with no one willing to indulge him in humorous banter, he realized how much he had wanted to know but never would because he’d been afraid to ask. He was afraid to reveal his emotional side to his father and sister. Celeste needed consoling, not the chance to console. His father needed space to govern, not a thousand questions. He could change his vulnerability now, but as for the questions from the past…

He stood up.

“Cyrus, sit down,” Crystil said, looking up firmly but not angrily. “This ship’s going to shake when we get close, and you need to be buckled in.”

He sighed and plopped back down.

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t want to see me flop around this ship like a rag doll?”

“I wouldn’t,” Crystil said.

He smiled, and she nodded in return, her facial expression unchanged. That was as much as he would get out of her.

Unless…

“So what’s this all for, Crystil?” he said as he took a seat, his normally cocky smile replaced by inquisitive eyes.

“Survival,” she said, but she kept tight eye contact with him.

“I see,” he said, his arms crossed, in a difficult conversation both for her succinctness and his fear of intimate conversations. “Celeste? You?”

She leaned forward to get in his vision and brushed aside her hair with a smile.

“To carry on the memory of Dad and everyone we knew.”

Cyrus nodded in approval and leaned back in his chair.

“And you, Cyrus?”

Cyrus grimaced. He looked away, then back toward the planet.

“We’ll find out,” he said, which deflected the question.

When the silence came and he didn’t have to justify his answer, he realized he didn’t really know. He had just gone because it’s what his father had said. He hadn’t bothered to think about the meaning of his existence anymore. He just read, trained, and laughed with his sister.

Choosing not to think deeply, he realized, served a protective purpose.

“We are now in Anatolus’ gravitational pull,” Cortanus announced.

“Strange, still feels like the same artificial gravity of the ship!” Cyrus said, relieved to have something to joke about.

Crystil ignored him, her chair sliding forward as she commandeered the flight controls.

“This might get a little bit bumpy. The atmosphere is somewhat like Monda, which was relatively smooth, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same here.”

Cyrus quickly buckled his seat belt. He put his hands on the straps, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, let the breath out slowly, and opened his eyes back up as he trusted his safety to the commander. He had no intention of disobeying here.

Space disappeared from their vision. They got closer to Anatolus, and Cyrus spotted a large forest in front of the mountain range. Besides the forest, though, it looked like all flatlands, with nothing but green, light green and small patches of dark green. There was the ocean, but as they came closer to landing, it disappeared from view as well.

“Where are we landing?” Celeste yelled, the sound of the ship making it hard to hear anything else.

“Right in front of the forest,” Crystil shouted in an impressively loud voice. “Gives us the most protection if we need to hide from anything.”

What would we hide from?!?

Cyrus became too nervous to speak and held on tight as the ground came closer.

“Time for our new home!” Crystil said with an unexpected smile.

When Cyrus looked at her, he swore her eyes watered, but he knew he’d never find out if it was from his shaky vision or true tears.

Crystil slowed the ship down, and the worst was over. They’d made it through the atmosphere without any damage, and aside from a possible jolt upon landing, nothing stood in their way for a safe arrival. Cyrus breathed a sigh of relief and laughed as he put his hands up in the air and shouted with boisterous joy.

“We made it! We made it! Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

Celeste laughed and cheered as well, and even Crystil smiled, her hands still on the controls just in case.

The ship gently landed about fifty feet from the forest. Cyrus saw the sky turning a darker shade of blue. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood on top of the control panel to get a better view. Crystil said his name, but he ignored her, and she didn’t say anything else.

“Wow,” he said, turning to the other two, his arms stretched out wide. “We can see more stars with our new sun still out than we ever could on Monda. It’s like we’re on permanent vacation!”

Crystil powered the ship down to the bare essentials and motioned for Cyrus to come down.

“Should we go outside and explore?” Celeste said.

“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Crystil said. “The sun’s about to come down, and though I feel like this planet is safe, there’s no point in risking running into a predator. We spent what, two years in space? We can survive about fourteen more hours without tasting the air or feelings the ground.”