Chapter 6 Falling Stars
SIX
FALLING STARS
Julia
Morning brightens the yard and banishes the last of the night across the trees outside. Without looking away for more than a brief flick of my eyes, my gaze never leaves the glass and the forest, making certain I’m alerted at the smallest movement within.
Feeling more at home than I have since I’ve gotten here, I relax into my stake-out, having done many missions of the like before.
Being able to hold position in the bowels of a war-torn colony ship, sometimes waiting days for a single person to move through an abandoned elevator shaft, patience and focus are two of my best attributes.
Holding a gun—a gun that’s mine—calms me as well.
But as the early morning shifts towards noon, my focus wavers, and the lack of sleep from the night before catches up to me.
I eye my survival pack with a sense of gloominess, having shoved it between two of the seating chairs to keep it out of sight.
Daisy comes out to check on me briefly and ask for news but she doesn’t stay long, choosing to keep the kids high on the mountain today and away from the house’s front.
She grabs food from the refrigerator, and glances out the window nervously before heading back to the boys.
No one other than Shelby and I—outside Zaku and Daisy—know about the hidden pathway and the reactor at the top of the mountain, or the massive storage rooms between us and there.
This house—Zaku and Daisy’s home—is supposedly a front to maintain it, which is also why there are special robots here when, according to the others, there are none anywhere else. At least anywhere else they’ve been.
I watch them now repairing the door, lasering through the glass and taking out the pieces with the fractures and fitting in new pieces in their places.
Heating the glass, the robots reshape and buff it until it almost looks brand new.
All the while, I keep my rifle straight, waiting to add another bullet through it.
Somewhere, deeper in the house, I think I hear one of the boys start shouting, and with my finger twitching on the trigger, I wince. Rolling my shoulders, I try to relax as the bots finish up with the door.
I spot movement in the trees and I swiftly stand for a better view, raising my gun and walking to the newly-made glass.
Seeing the grayish green naga from the evening before emerging from the forest, the one with the tousled, short brown hair, I call out to him when his gaze clashes with mine. “I will shoot you if you come any closer,” I warn loudly.
He peers at my weapon, his eyes dropping to the bots in front of me before returning to my face. His gaze roams over the rest of the house and I stiffen, wondering if he heard what I said.
When he opens his mouth to speak and I can’t hear him, I point at the window away from the door, aiming with my gun. “I’ll meet you over there,” I shout.
He tilts his head and I slowly walk deeper into the house along the glass and towards the seating area.
After a moment, he looks around again and moves towards me from across the yard, seeming to not fully trust that I’m not baiting him into a trap.
Still stepping back several paces and keeping my distance from the window, I frown at him.
“What?” I ask, reminding him he’s the one that appeared out of nowhere, not me.
He scans the glass and leans back to take in the door before re-facing me. “Are you okay?”
My frown deepens, not sure if I heard him correctly.
“Y-yes,” I answer with some hesitance. “Why?”
He gives me a nod, scanning everything again like he’s assessing it.
With his short, slightly-curly brown locks around his neck and ears, I wonder why I haven’t given him much notice before despite seeing him outside last night and on other occasions. “What’s your name—” I go to ask, getting cut off by a loud humming noise.
He twists and turns to the sky.
Unable to see what he’s looking at, I strain my neck and move up against the glass as the noise gets louder.
What sounds like a spaceship flying overhead, I disregard it as such when the ground trembles beneath my feet.
Loudening by the moment, I release my gun and let it drop to my hip to cover my ears, hoping Daisy is okay and the kids are not frightened.
It’s been a few days since the last spaceship flew by, and it wasn’t nearly as loud as this one.
The noise passes but it’s soon followed by more.
Beginning to see smoke streaks in the sky above some of the pines, the ground starts trembling again when several more ships fly overhead.
Seeing some flash above and through the branches, I start to grow nervous after I count the third ship and then the fourth one, knowing I’m hearing even more ships out of sight.
My eyes flick to the naga outside, who’s now poised in the middle of the yard, staring upward, a deep furrow lining his brow. “What do you see?” I shout but he doesn’t hear me.
The ground starts shaking again.
Heading to the door, I turn the handle and unlock the bolts, stepping outside to see what he’s peering at, keeping one foot inside to hold it open. Spying the faint outline of the moon, my brow furrows as deeply as the naga’s.
Bleeding across it where I know The Dreadnaut is stationed is a reddish, pink glow, and in the sky between me and it are countless glowing dots. As some steadily grow closer, I realize the dots are ships.
Lots and lots of ships. What the hell?
My eyes drop to the naga as he turns to me.
Ducking back inside, I realize the bots are gone as I race across the room for Daisy and the boys.
Running down the hallway and yanking open the red interior door, I’m glad she didn’t lock it behind her as I rush through the short hallway on the other side and into the open kid’s space.
I come upon Daisy and the boys by the windows in the napping room.
“They’re ships,” I call out to them as I shove my gun behind me. “They’re coming from The Dreadnaut.”
Daisy, holding Zuzu to her nipple, peers over her shoulder at me, her expression just as confused and as worried as mine must appear. “Do you have a clue as to why?”
After shouldering off my gunstrap and setting down my gun, I pick up one of her toddlers and shake my head. “I think something must’ve happened. Maybe an explosion? The moon has a faint pink glow where I think The Dreadnaut’s supposed to be.”
Daisy’s brow furrows. “What could cause a faint pink glow?”
We stare at each other, and I slowly shake my head.
Another ship flies directly overhead. The boys scream when the noise quickly becomes overbearing.
Moving into the kid’s nap room to peer further out the window, I see a spaceship above the trees.
It almost looks like it might crash into the side of the mountain as it swiftly dodges to the side and out of sight.
“Get away from the window!” I jerk back with a gasp.
Daisy and I rush the boys out of the room and towards the interior back wall, and we hunker down beside the spiral staircase. The chairs rattle as we brace.
“Zaku?” Daisy calls out to me through the rumbling noise, her arms straining around Zuzu and her oldest of the twins.
“No,” I shout, answering her unspoken question. “He’s not back.”
The noise dims as the ship flies away. A picture from the wall drops and the kids start shouting, making the youngest cry. With the three of them sheltered between Daisy’s arms and me, we both partially hover over them.
“It’s okay,” Daisy coos. “It’s okay. It’s just a ship that got too close, nothing more.”
Holding Daisy’s youngest of the two twins to my side, I reassure all three of them right along with her. “Shhhhh, it’ll be over soon. We need to get them away from the paintings and furniture,” I tell Daisy over the growing hum that was beginning to return.
She nods, and rising to her feet, starts ushering the kids down into the staircase towards her’s and Zaku’s nest, a place I’ve rarely entered and only to see the storage facilities and reactor hidden at the top of the mountain.
Helping her lead the kids below, I try not to look at the giant, golden cage in the corner of the room.
Just as I enter and move to the wall directly to the right with Daisy’s kids, the door slams open behind me. I barely have time to dodge out of Zaku’s way as he comes barreling into the room. He hisses at me as he passes by, embracing Daisy and his sons and wrapping his tail around them.
Hearing the noise build, almost to a painful degree, and feeling out of place suddenly, I start to back out of the room when I run into Krellix on the other side of the door.
He looks down at me, lifting his arms to the walls on either side as they begin to vibrate, seemingly like he’s preparing to hold them up if they collapse.
Our eyes meet and my lips part, noticing the muscles of his shoulders and biceps and the way his veins thrum on the underside of his forearms. With his tail crowding the stairs behind him, I’m unable to pass him.
Krellix glances behind me then back down, his expression turning into one of understanding.
He shifts to the side and lets me through, and as I head up into the open room above, he slides his tail out of my path and follows me, hovering just behind me when another picture drops from the wall with a crash.
I flinch and his hand covers my shoulder and squeezes.
Then he grabs me and hauls me against his chest. Taking hold of me and lifting me into his arms, he shields me with his body as he takes us back to the front space of the house.
My body stiffens from our abrupt closeness, and I push away only to stop when the sound of a distant explosion fills my ears.
The mountain shudders violently and instead of fighting him, I grab onto him tighter.
With a deep hiss, he carries me down the hallway and into my room.
“What are you—” I begin to say when he ushers us into the attached bathroom at the back.
Taking me down to the floor in the back corner and into the large, white tub there, he partially releases me to bring his tail in to loop into a barrier between me and the bathroom mirror on the opposite side.
Curling my knees in front of me, I cover my head with my hands as the trembling continues.
Krellix climbs his upper half into the tub with me and drapes one of his arms lightly over my shoulders.
Listening to the rattles, creaking, shattering sounds echo and emanate off and through the mountain, I grow numb to it all, just praying for it to end.
For a time I’m unable to focus on anything else except the constant stream of noise.
Minutes turn to hours and when the deafening sounds dwindle into hollow hums, I wonder if it’s ever going to stop when silence finally descends.
Krellix and I don’t immediately speak even when the quiet drifts in, tense in our close spot in the tub.
Pressed between him and the tub wall, all I hear are our breaths as I listen for more ships.
But as the minutes of silence grow, some of the tension leaves my shoulders when I continue to hear nothing.
Slowly, a rich, warm and spicy scent tickles my nose.
Inhaling it in, I’m immediately calmed. It pools through me, igniting the little hairs in the back of my nose as my lungs expand.
Raising my head up and looking through the door that’s letting in a little bit of light from the bedroom, it appears the house is going to remain standing.
I release a long breath and press my brow to Krellix’s arm in relief.
When I inhale more of the warm spice in the air, heat spreads across my skin.
“I think it’s over,” I murmur. “I hope.”
His body twitches under my brow, and it’s then I realize where the smell is coming from. Shoving my hand over my nose, I take in another breath through my mouth. I pull back and scoot away.
Slowly, he unwinds his tail from the tub’s edge and creates a path for me, lifting away from me at the same time. Feeling him go, he also takes his warmth, and I nearly release a wistful groan.
He backs out of the bathroom, his eyes dark and avoiding mine. “I think you are right,” he responds, his voice low.
Staying behind for another moment, I press my hand to the side of my neck, finding my pulse beating hard beneath my palm.
Taking another steadying breath and smelling more of him in the room, though fainter this time, I drop my hand and follow him out, knowing, no matter what happens next, my plans have not changed.
I flick the switch to the bathroom’s vent before I go.
Now, more than ever, I need to leave.
If there’s people and ships out there… My freedom might be out there too.
There is no better time.
I knew it.