Chapter 8 #2
The air is hot, dry like the aftermath of a blazing fire. It's my first trip off planet; Samara’s surveying new worlds with no advanced sentient lifeforms to set up a new training facility for Samarastocks. Due to our outstanding performance, she’ll create more of us, a high honor.
And I’m chosen as her personal bodyguard. My hearts swell with the knowledge she's pleased with me, that I'm almost as close to perfect as she is. Like the other Samarastocks, I hover around Samara, circling her like our personal sun, but unlike them, I get to be close enough to touch her.
The ground trembles beneath my feet, a low, distant rumble that turns into a full-blown quake. Sharp bellows pierce the air like horns of war.
A herd of huge animals, twice my size, thunders over the ridge. Jagged crowns of antlers cut the sky, the beasts’ massive bodies surging in a wave of muscle and power. They're lethal, and we're in their path.
“Prif Samara,” I shout, my voice drowned out by the cacophony.
She stands a few meters ahead of me, frozen in the face of the stampede.
I push through a surge of fear for her, grab her by the arm and haul her against my chest. She stumbles, eyes wide with shock, but then she automatically resists me, refusing to be dragged.
“We have to go. Now,” I shout, an explanation and an apology for touching her without her leave.
I pull her toward a rocky outcrop that might give us some cover, and shove her against the cliff face, making sure she’s safely out of the stampede’s path.
I block them with my body, turning my back to them to curl over her, and firming up my scales.
The thunderous approach turns deafening, the ground shaking under the weight of hundreds of pounding hooves.
Her golden eyes glare at me, but at least she’s out of harm’s way. “Get away from me,” she snaps.
I'm caught. If I move, I'll be hit. But if I disobey, I'll anger her further. My head pounds as I dare to contemplate disobeying her for even an instant.
And before I can stop myself, I take a step back.
A massive beast catches my right arm, impaling it with antlers sharp enough to slice through steel, and burning pain sears up my side as I'm yanked into the stampede away from her.
I'm swallowed into the crushing, shoving, painful mass of animals. The agony is all-consuming, blinding. My weight tears my arm down the beast’s sharp antler, each rip a stab of fire as bone snaps in my shoulder, flesh tearing.
My vision blurs, a haze of red and white, and then a heavy hoof smashes into the side of my head.
Like a brand being pressed to my face, I can't escape the burning pain.
My body is a limp Milagrove noodle beneath their relentless weight, crushed and battered, every breath a struggle.
I stay conscious, somehow, clutching to life with a thread of stubbornness. Samara. She might need me, she might have been caught in this. I have to save her.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the stampede passes, leaving silence in its wake. Blood pools around me, thick and warm, and my broken body trembles as I force myself upright, my vision a blur of shapes and dark on one side.
But I don’t get far. I can't move; every muscle, every bone feels like it’s been shattered.
Still, I try, groping toward the harsh, heavy sun of this foreign world.
Samara might need me. What happened to her when I was swept away?
Is she nearby, hurt, and I'm lying here, useless and unable to help her?
The ringing in my ears turns into footsteps.
Not the heavy tread of the creatures, but the light, sure steps of Samarastocks.
Their gold and black scales gleam like precious metals as they approach me, but their bronze eyes are cold and assessing, taking in my ruined arm, my mangled face, and the disgust on their faces makes me close my remaining eye.
Despite them saying nothing, I know I'm damaged. Imperfect.
They don’t speak as they lift me, dragging my limp form through the dirt.
I open my eye to focus, to keep alert. My nanites struggle to repair the sheer amount of damage I've sustained.
Will I expire before they finish? My vision slips in and out of focus as I dangle between the Samarastocks, the rocks blurring into the grey-brown grassland and gravel beds.
I hold onto the pain, using it to stay awake.
In the distance, I see her—Samara. She stands, untouched, watching as they carry me toward her. A wave of relief breaks over me. She’s safe. I saved her.
They let me go before her, a broken offering. Satisfaction warms my scraped scales as I crumple to her feet. Neck aching, I search for a glimmer of recognition in her cold, beautiful eyes for the sacrifice I made.
But when she looks down at me, there’s only cold inspection. No gratitude, no compassion.
“Shift,” she orders me. “I want to see if the damage carries to the next clone.”
Ah! Perhaps she programmed us to regrow limbs when we change form. With all my remaining energy, I shove myself into the thinnest clone type. Perhaps the reduced mass will allow my arm to regrow, to reassemble, to… something!
A scream escapes my parched throat as I contort, each convulsion churning the sand and dirt.
My hearts buckle under the strain, and my remaining sight dims, but I do it.
My Pranastock mind fills with desperate calculations, location relative to Oloria and likelihood of survival given my current condition.
My body wavers, uneven, balance off, and I automatically adjust to counter the lack of my right arm. I can’t see from that side still.
It didn’t work. I’m not whole, but at least I can still shift. Perhaps she’ll have some use for me?
The burgeoning hope dies as her eyes harden, lips curling in a faint expression of disgust. She turns her face away, as if my very presence offends her.
“Dispose of him,” she says, as if discarding a piece of broken machinery. Her words cut deeper than any antler, a final blow that shatters my grip on life.
There's no purpose anymore.
The Samarastocks grip me with the same cold indifference as they drag me away. I close my remaining eye, numbness overtaking the pain, and surrender to the darkness that finally claims me.
When the darkness eases, I’m being carried, head and remaining arm dangling behind a broad back of blue-purple scales.
The right side of my head throbs with pain and, worse, that side is dark.
My right arm is gone entirely, just a phantom pain as my nerves try, unsuccessfully, to fire, nanites unable to replace what's lost. Blood drips slowly down my raw side, staining the sand and footprints below us in dull red drops, but I don’t care. Pain is secondary now.
I was injured for a reason, a purpose—saving her. I've served my purpose. It's over, and there's nothing left.
“Gara, come quick,” the clone carrying me shouts. “I found him.”
There’s a flurry around me as he lays me down on metal. A ship? Yes, I can feel it in what’s left of my scales. My Pranastock senses urge me to the ship’s core, to connect with it, to find out where it’s been and where it’s going.
But I’m not going anywhere.
When my rescuer steps back I finally identify him—a Gerverstock, an adventurer clone.
A dark green Selthiastock looms over me, eyes sharp as he assesses me. “Injured? Ilia, he’s half dead.”
“Do what you can, please.” The Gerverstock isn’t ordering, he’s asking.
Unusual.
“What’s a Pranastock doing here?” A harsh voice from a Parthiastock, enforcer of Samara’s laws.
They’re second only to Samarastocks in their loyalty to the Prif, but they don’t have inborn instincts to revere her, nor the extra training to ensure their compliance.
Their devotion to her pales in comparison to ours.
The Selthiastock works on closing off the raw edges of my shoulder, helping my nanites to heal me. But Samara said I should be disposed of. I should have been left to die.
Water pushes between my lips. I keep my jaw shut tight, but the allure of the cold, crisp liquid is too much. I open my mouth and take the droplets, then a few more, my throat raw as I swallow.
“He’s strong, he’ll make it,” the Gerverstock says with approval. He holds the bottle for me and I drink greedily. As he watches me, his eyes glimmer.
Every drop sustains me, settles into my body to help my nanites heal me, but there’s no healing what’s missing.
Once my head clears, I confront harsh reality, feeling around my head and the divot where my eye should be, then staring at the wreckage of my shoulder as the Selthiastock works.
My nanites have finally stopped all the bleeding, knitting up my arteries and tying off my shoulder muscles, but they can’t do anything about replacing the limb.
“How did you find me?” I ask, my voice hoarse and low.
“Our Apex scanned the planet, said you were in trouble,” the Gerverstock replies.
“Why did you save me?” My one good eye meets his, searching for something in his gaze. He’s a stranger. A fellow Olorian and a clone, but… different.
The Gerverstock tilts his head, his lips quirking into a small, almost amused smile. “You’re an Olorian clone like us. We don't abandon one of our own.”
“You should have left me to die,” I say. I’d rather die than let slip any of Samara’s secrets.
The Gerverstock’s gaze softens. It makes me want to slap him, shake him, but at the same time, it's like he knows a little of the pain tearing its way into my hearts.
“I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re one of us,” he says.
Looking around at his motley crew, I try to understand his words.
I’ve spent time being Gerverstocks, Selthiastocks, and Parthiastocks, practicing hiding among them, but I’ve never seen them intermixing.
The Gerverstock must be putting together a diverse crew, utilizing the roles of the different clone types.
And he’s chosen me. What possible strength could he see in me?
“Arture? Are you okay?”