Velhall Palace
Oitylon [capital city], Ravelous [planet], Despæ [star system]
03 May; 21:57:38 Hours - 17 Years Ago
Eerie strings sang through the ballroom as Astronauts from various star systems glided around the dance floor while others congregated in groups, conversing with each other. A couple then slowed down to a near stop before they walked off the dance floor arm-in-arm, where they bowed to Throx who was making his rounds. The Defiler nodded to the two before turning to the sound of a man who called to him.
“<My Lord,>” Saabal, the right hand to Throx, approached his master whom he then lowered his voice to a near whisper to, “<There’s been an incident.>”
“<An incident?>” the Defiler growled as his eyes narrowed.
“<Yes, my Lord. She has… well, perhaps you should see for yourself.>”
Throx’s fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked before he stormed off through the crowd of guests, pushing his way toward the ballroom doors with Saabal following closely behind. Astronauts were quick to move out of the two’s way. However, some who were not fast enough found themselves violently shoved, with some even falling to the black marble floor.
***
Nearly ten Black Guards were in the master chambers, where they cornered Syia who was eight months pregnant, wearing a flowing deep purple gown that was sliced open in several spots and she pressed the tip of a dagger to her stomach. Her face was contorted, bright red as tears filled her eyes. She yelled at them with saliva spewing from her mouth.
“<Get back! All of you! I said to get back!>”
“<Put the blade down, my Queen!>” one urged her as they all aimed their black TAK8s at her.
“<Please, m’lady!>” another followed before a third and fourth echoed them.
“<Lay down the dagger before you get hurt!>”
“<Place it on the bed, now!>”
“<Before I get hurt?” she laughed, “Before I get hurt? Do you not see that is EXACTLY what I want? I want this parasite out of me! I want IT dead! And if that means I must die to make that happen, so be—”
“<Enough!>” Throx’s voice roared from just outside the threshold of the bedroom. “<What madness are you up to now?>”
Syia’s purple eyes darted to him, where they dilated and she hissed at him, “<Heretic scum! Madness is YOUR specialty!>”
“<Look at you!>” he barked and walked toward her with the Black Guards parting so he could pass. “<Your gown is ruined! You’re bleeding! You’re threatening to kill our beautiful creation!>”
“<Beautiful creation?>”
“<Yes,” a haunting smile emerged from his grim face, softly saying in his deep voice, “our beautiful creation.>”
“<Sick! This spawn is anything but beautiful!>” and she spit at him.
In an instant, the smile that was upon Throx’s face cracked and his expression exploded with fury. His eyes grew large, brow furrowed and he roared as he took several massive steps toward his wife, “<Fine! Kill yourself! Take your life and snuff out what pure remnant of your cursed bloodline remains! I will rip our child from your corpse and deliver her to the Zetas who will ensure survival!>”
Syia’s lip quivered and her hand that she held the dagger in began to shake.
Throx then took two more steps toward her where he was now within arm’s distance of Syia. She gulped before stammering, “<I, I’ll do, I’ll do it!>”
He slowly reached out, his fingers one-by-one wrapped around her wrist and he bellowed, “<Liar…>”
***
Oscio [planet], Elysium [star system]
03 May; 21:57:38 Hours
An explosion of blue, green, and crimson light bloomed out in space as it rushed and folded back onto itself before streaks of white star glimpses flooded forward from the black void at the center where Phantom-2-7 emerged from the jump stream. Augur and Sacks sat in the cockpit, with Sacks flipping several switches before he tapped the universal position monitor to his right and it zoomed in on Oscio. Augur eased back on the jump dial before he turned the control wheel slightly to the left and their cruiser slowly moved into the direction of the blue stormy planet.
“<I hate this planet,>” Augur growled as they began their approach.
“Well, come on,” Sacks chuckled, “it’s a free-man’s, we’ll be good to chill out here for a bit.”
“<Free-man’s? Metrog was a free-man’s too until SHE came along!>”
“What’s your deal? You’re acting like she’s some kind of royal on the run or something!”
“<The fact that you can’t see through the blush haze of your penis will surely be our downfall!>” Augur hissed, took firm control of the control wheel as the cruiser started to shake while they entered Oscio’s orbit and zipped down with the eternal raging storm coming into clear view.
Lightning arced through the clouds just below them, a booming crack erupted before thunder followed like a roaring lion. Alarms wailed throughout the cruiser with red flashing lights lighting up the halls, and Syia came hurrying out of her quarters where she slammed into one side of the wall before the other as the cruiser rocked. She struggled to make her way toward the cockpit, where she could see the explosions of bright purple light through the view shield before explosive cracks forced Syia to cover her ears.
“Okay,” Sacks yelled, “maybe it was a terrible idea to reset course for Oscio!”
“<You think?>” Augur snapped.
“You don’t have to be a dick about it!”
Augur grit his teeth as he struggled to keep control of the wheel, piloting them through the raging storm clouds and dropping another two thousand feet. Phantom-2-7 zipped down with lightning continuing to explode around them, one bolt even struck the right side with another alarm triggering and forcing Sacks to flip several switches. The cruiser shook like it was ready to fall from the sky before it finally steadied enough for them to level out just after breaking free of the clouds.
Syia’s eyes grew seven times as the sight of the world below the storm came into view. “<This cannot be!>”
“OH! Oh, it can and is Toots!” Sacks said as they could see a gigantic wave out in the distance that crashed down and sounded like an explosion powerful enough to leave a species extinct.
“<Enough chit chatting,>” Augur snapped. “<Turn the damn locator on! We need to find the entrance to Aluxora now!>”
“Okay! Okay! I’m going!” Sacks chuckled and flipped several switches before typing onto their positioning device.
“<Entrance?>” Syia scoffed as she looked out through the view shield at nothing but ocean.
“Yeah, Toots, there’s an entrance.”
“<Do you two not see what I see? It’s nothing but raging ocean!>”
Augur’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he listened to her.
“The universe is full of ingenuity,” Sacks said as a beacon pinging intensified and the ocean out in front of them began spinning like a whirlpool.
A bright blue beam of light ripped through the ocean, the whirlpool intensified as the beam expanded and appeared to form a tube with the water draining through it. Augur pushed the accelerator forward and Phantom-2-7 shot directly for the tube as the ocean around them continued to rage. Mist exploded up around them as the waves crashed, their vision was greatly impaired but Augur kept his sights locked on the entrance. Several alarms went off as a red light flashed in the cockpit.
“<What’s wrong now?>” Syia gasped.
“Augur!” Sacks exclaimed. “Um, we gotta move faster!”
“<We’re going as fast as we can in this situation!>” he snapped.
“Augur!”
“<We’re going!>”
A gigantic wave, even greater than the first they saw after breaking free from the clouds, breached over the horizon out in front of them. They were growing closer to the entrance every second, yet the wave became more and more ominous as it cast a darkness like the cold darkness of space.
Sacks’ eyes were so large it looked like they could bulge free from his face. “We’re not gonna make it!”
“<Oh, oh my,>” Syia’s voice trembled as she quickly sat down in the third chair and buckled up her harness.
Augur’s eyes narrowed again, though this time with an intensity, his hand firmly clenched the throttle that was near max as the wave now cast them in darkness. Sacks’ breathing became a deep heavy panting; Syia’s eyes closed tightly as she bowed her head, but Augur remained focused as the entrance was only six hundred yards out. Then like thousands of waterfalls beginning to unleash, the wave neared overhead of them and it began its crash. It was at that moment that Augur pushed it and thrust the throttle all the way forward, the cruiser shot off nearing a dangerously low altitude speed with what seemed to be all of the alarms blaring in the cockpit.
“<Get ready!>” Augur yelled as they were almost on top of the entrance.
Sacks held his breath, nodded his head, and hovered his hand over the kill switch.
“<Reeeeeady…” he bellowed and then the millisecond Phantom-2-7 was about to shoot straight over the opening, Augur barked, “NOW!>”
Sacks flipped the red switch on the control console in front of him and everything went out; the lights, the engine, the alarms all ceased and the ship immediately nosedived down the entrance. The wave too, crashed down atop the opening with what at first was an ungodly torrential downpour before the ocean followed. Though Sacks didn’t wait too long before flipping the switch again with everything returning, and Augur pulled the throttle back before pushing it forward causing the engines to reignite which allowed them to speed down the transparent tunnel.
The ocean rushed down the tunnel after the cruiser, as Augur maneuvered it carefully through the slight bends, making their way toward the submerged mega-city, Aluxora. His eyes were narrowed to a near close, his pupils were pinpoints with intense focus while turning the control wheel as the cruiser shifted to the left before back to the right. The ocean did not let up as it chased them, and the ungodly roar of water consuming all behind them neared.
“Two hundred clicks!” Sacks yelled, seeing the city coming into view.
“<We’re not gonna make it!>” Syia nearly cried as she put her head into her lap.
“One hundred and fifty,” he now noted, “not far!”
“<We’re gonna die! We’re, we’re gonna die!>”
“<Shut…” Augur growled as they were practically at the entrance, as a push code pinged on the cruiser’s control panel, “… it!>”
The shuttle began to shake as the waves were as close as they had ever been, more sirens began blaring and the red lights seemed to be constant. Sacks had isolated the push code, hovering his hand over a touch button on the control panel as his eyes were focused on the entrance shield. Though as they went from one hundred and ten klicks to eighty in what felt like a blink, he allowed himself to keep his peripheral vision on Augur who was pushing them as fast as he could.
Then, everything appeared to go silent before Augur yelled, “<NOW!>”
Sacks slammed his hand on the button, and a loud high-pitched uptick beeping rang out before an automated voice confirmed, “Push code granted.”
Syia looked up to find they were shooting straight at the entrance shield that hadn’t dematerialized, and there was no slowing on their part. Her heart was racing seemed to kick into an even higher gear. She wanted to scream but her throat was so dry that she couldn’t and before she knew it, they flew straight through the shield.
“Wooooohoooooo!” Sacks yelled as he jumped up out of his seat and punched the air. “That’s what I’m talking about, bay-beeeee!”
Augur rolled his eyes, let out a deep growling breath from his nose, and pulled back on the accelerator as they now flew over the port of Aluxora. There were thousands upon thousands of cruisers, transports, and other ships that lined the docks. An entire sea of Astronauts who moved from the port to and from the mega-city. The intensity that consumed them all shifted, it was no longer an unrelenting doom but now a swirl of curiosity and anxiousness as Syia sat up and couldn’t believe her eyes.
“<We’re,” she stammered in disbelief, “we’re alive. We, we survived.>”
“<Obviously,>” Augur growled just as Sacks grabbed Syia by the cheeks, kissed her on the forehead and he laughed.
“Damn right, we’re alive, Toots!”
Syia’s purple eyes grew large, her face blushed as she looked at him with a bit of a gasp.
“So, uh,” Sack’s excitement abruptly faded as he sat back into his seat and looked to Augur, who he asked, “What’s the plan?”
“<Don’t get noticed,>” he snapped.
“I mean, can’t make promises.”
“<For the love of Aaela,>” Augur loudly said. “<Do not make a scene; do not attract any attention; do not do anything stupid!>”
“Okay, okay, you’re acting like that’s all I do!”
“<Basically,>” he quipped as he landed Phantom-2-7 on docking pad-A02J541ZP1.
The ship shook slightly as they touched down. Various lights lit up around the cockpit while in the background were numerous cranking and hissing sounds as pressure valves released and settled. Augur and Sacks began flipping switches, sliding touch dials, and making quick checks on vitals before Sacks finally turned to Syia and smiled.
“Alright, Toots, time to explore!”
“<What did I just tell you?>” Augur barked.
“I know, I know, don’t make a scene or get noticed! I know, Augur! I know!”
Augur’s light brown eyes narrowed though as he looked at Syia directly, growling, “<Especially you.>”
“<Me?>” she gasped.
“<Yes, you.>”
“<I won’t, I promise.>”
He just glared at her as Sacks was quick to grab her hand and pull her along, saying, “Come on! Let’s go, Toots!”
***
Roughly one hour later…
The wide streets were nearly packed with Astronauts from all around the universe, though, unlike Metrog, there wasn’t a feeling of being rushed. Sacks and Syia moved through one of the thicks where they came up to a vendor who was selling newborn Yahmo puppies, Sacks saw Syia’s eyes light up as she looked at the one the Vhanikshon was holding. He tapped her on the shoulder and smiled.
“You want it?”
Syia’s eyes fluttered. “<Excuse me?>”
“I asked if you want it, Toots.”
“<W-what? Na-no, I can’t.>”
“You can’t?” Sack’s chuckled before seriously asking her, “What? You allergic?”
“<No, I, I just can’t.>”
“Hey, you can have whatever you want.”
Syia’s eyes grew deep as she looked back at the Yahmo pup. Ever since she was sixteen, she hadn’t felt or experienced what Sacks was causing her to now - freedom.
“Um, Toots?” he softly said as he placed his hand on her shoulder, “You okay?”
A tear rolled down her cheek before her eyes fluttered rapidly, and she turned back to him as she smiled. “<Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.>”
“Well? Do you want it?”
“<Please.>”
“You got it, Toots!” Sacks said with a massive smile, he reached into the one pouch on his belt and pulled ten silver pieces that he held out to the vendor. “We’ll take it!”
Augur was across the way from the two, making his way through the crowd as he could faintly hear Sacks laughing. He rolled his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and let out a groan before something changed. Augur’s eyes narrowed as he looked over to his right at the holo-board that caught his attention. There were dozens of bounties displayed, rotating, flipping through various others but one in particular remained steady at the top.
His breathing got heavier as he stopped in front of the bounty board. Augur grit his teeth so hard that his jaw popped and his brow furrowed as he looked at the top bounty, where he glared at a live-photo of Syia in regalia, wearing a tiara-circlet and forcing out a smile. Listed on the bounty were her vitals, “Name: Queen Syia of the Depth; Height: 5’8”; Weight: 123 lbs; Hair: Long silky black; Eyes: Purple; Defining features: Pointed ears; Bounty: S-24,000,000 - Must be alive.”
Augur’s face practically glowed red with fury as he slowly turned and saw Sacks and Syia, with his attention honing in on Syia who was holding the pup while they smiled and laughed with each other. He clenched his fists tightly while he bellowed, “<Liar…>”