CHAPTER 6
At Sage’s announcement, Aquarius practically yelled, “You’re the queen of Mars?
” He’d already guessed Ishtar hid a secret, but he’d not expected it to be this big.
When he’d imagined the Martian Queen, she definitely wasn’t attractive and human looking.
Although she did have the haughty part down pat.
Ishtar’s lips twisted. “Queen in title only. As we discussed earlier, Mars is dead.”
“For now,” Sage’s enigmatic reply.
“Who are you? How did you know?” Ishtar’s lips pursed, obviously not pleased at having been outed.
“I am Sage, seer for the Zodiac Warriors, wife to Aries, and this little bean here is Noelle.” Sage patted her daughter’s back.
“A seer, of course,” muttered Ishtar. “I am told you uttered a prophecy about me and my planet.”
Sage’s lips turned down. “I did, but I don’t remember it, and neither does Olivia.”
“The Tower of Babel has two seers in residence?” Ishtar sounded surprised.
“Olivia is but a child still. Many years to go before her skills will be developed enough for her to truly help guide,” Sage explained.
“How is it you don’t recall your own foretelling?”
The query had Sage lifting and dropping her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s never happened before.”
“Perhaps the person who heard you misunderstood.”
“Doubtful. Aries has excellent recollection. Speaking of whom, he’ll want to meet you. If you’ll excuse me, I shall return with him shortly.” Sage began ascending the stairs with a happy bounce, and Ishtar sighed.
“I guess there’s no point in asking her to keep quiet about my identity.”
“Not sure why you’d want to. It’s not a thing to be ashamed of, although I am curious how you ended up on Earth.”
She waved a hand. “We can speak of it over a meal. I am quite hungry, and as I recall, the food here is quite excellent.”
“It is, but I’m thinking I need the kind of meal that comes in a glass,” Aquarius muttered as they continued to descend.
“I am pleased to see Nimrod remains fully functional.”
“Who’s Nimrod?” He didn’t recognize the name.
“That is the name of the entity imbuing this structure.”
He blinked. “Tower’s possessed?”
“In a sense. While solidly constructed, such a structure could never exist without magical aid.”
“And you know this how?”
Her lips curved. “Because my people built it.”
“Nimrod is Martian?” He couldn’t help a lilt of surprise.
“The construction is, but Nimrod is an Astraeus who lost its stars and needed a new place to inhabit. The Tower of Babel is only one of many monuments erected by my kind on Earth, although most have since fallen into disrepair since they lacked a magical entity to maintain them. I’m pleased to see Nimrod thriving.
A lot of effort went into creating this new home for it and my people. ”
“By the sounds of it, you’ve not visited in a while.”
“Eons to be precise. I was one of the first to leave.” Her shoulders rolled. “Others chose to remain until the completion of Atlantis.”
“Atlantis was Martian?” He was beginning to lose the ability to be stunned.
“A marvelous place, where my people could be themselves surrounded by the technology that made the humans suspicious. But even with our advances, we couldn’t stop the earthquake that sank it.
We lost so many that day.” Her lips turned down.
“We never truly recovered, and those that survived scattered around the world to avoid extinction.”
“Why didn’t they come back to Tower?”
“Tower is lovely but confining as well. Some preferred the livelier world outside of it, not to mention, those who wished to find companionship and start families had to look elsewhere, given those who remained after a few generations were too genetically close.”
“How come you don’t look Martian?” he asked as they reached the dining level.
“Did you expect someone with green or grey skin, tentacles, perhaps those big black eyes so popular in movies?”
He couldn’t help but offer a sheepish smile. “Yeah.”
“Those traits are more common in aliens from solar systems beyond the Milky Way. Martians have always looked as you see me now, only with slightly more bronzish skin.”
“How is it possible two planets evolved the same kind of species?” He didn’t know much about evolution, but even he knew the improbability.
“Before our planet died, my people used to visit Earth and incorporated some of our genetics with the local Cro-Magnon population.”
“You mated with cave men?” His nose wrinkled.
Her laughter tinkled—and sound that had him swelling below the belt. “Goodness no, that would be like fornicating with a dumb animal. Think of it more as gene splicing, in a lab, of course, to make our species more compatible.”
“You experimented on humans.” He didn’t hide his shock.
“If you’d met them, you wouldn’t have called them human. They were only slightly more evolved than animals.” She showed no sign of remorse at the admission. “And we were in a population decline. A common problem among the advanced and long-lived.”
“Wait, how old are you?”
She ignored him to head right for the alcove, where she snatched a plate holding several slices of pizza. Since the kitchen usually gave what a person most craved, he could only imagine she’d not enjoyed cheese, sauce, and pepperoni pies often while living in her cave.
“Not as old as you’re thinking, but old,” she stated, carrying her meal to a table.
Aquarius snatched the second plate of pizza, which also came with a much-needed beer, and joined her.
“This queen thing, is it an inherited or elected role?”
“Inherited.” A short answer.
“At least you were expecting it to happen then. The day I got chosen by the Astraeus to be a warrior I had like five seconds to decide if I wanted to be a guardian of the world.” Then again, there’d been no real choice. Die or serve. He couldn’t imagine many chose the former.
“At least you serve a purpose,” she stated in between bites. “Me, I am a queen without a throne, without a people, without any true role. At times I wonder, what’s the point?”
“Because you can still do good. If it weren’t for your help with that nanobot, Earth would be in serious shit right now because the asteroid would have hit and we’d likely have several Kukakk to deal with.”
“One is bad enough.” She grimaced.
“I really am sorry I accidentally led that monster to you, and I am serious about helping you rebuild your workshop.”
“It’s not entirely your fault.” She sighed. “If I am to be honest, it would only have been a matter of time before the Kukakk discovered my location, as it would have detected the elements it needed for building its machines.”
“Is anywhere on Earth safe from them?”
She eyed the remaining slice on her plate. “The Tower of Babel was built to protect.”
“And yet the Martians still left it for Atlantis.”
“Not all of them. As far as I know some remain here to this day. However, Nimrod has added to the collection of strays without a home. It takes it job as sanctuary quite seriously.”
His eyes just about fell out of his head. “You speak as if you can communicate with Tower?”
“Yes, but not in the way you and I are talking right now. Nimrod can convey images and feelings, which is why, when most Martians fled, it asked about using its body to provide a base of operation for an elite group of warriors. You see, Nimrod lost its home in the stars because of the Kukakk, and the other Astraeus became anxious, for they never saw the threat.”
“Because they’re blind to these aliens.”
“An oddity I never quite understood,” she confirmed. “That fear led to them wanting a way to watch over the solar system and Earth. Not to mention, watching living things thrive gives them pleasure.”
“Because we’re like a reality television show to them,” he murmured. It was the best analogy he could think of for why the star gods even bothered.
“I guess that is one way of explaining it,” she said with a laugh. “While Nimrod imbued this tower with its essence, the others had a different idea. They chose to enhance humans instead, making them guardian avatars.”
“How many Martians still exist today?” he asked.
“Outside this tower, there are few that carry the pure blood of our ancestors. Even those that remained with Nimrod likely retained little of our ancestral genes.” She offered a sad smile.
“As was to be expected, my people mingled, married, procreated. Fun fact, there is probably not a single human on Earth that doesn’t have a drop of Martian blood. ”
“If that’s true, how can you be a pureblood?”
“Because I was made, not born,” she stated as if it were common knowledge. “Even now, the incubators have my next form waiting.”
His mouth rounded. “You’re a test tube baby?”
“Actually, the term clone might be more apt.”
“Cool.” Some might have recoiled, but Aquarius honestly found this fascinating.
“What’s cool?”
Engrossed in Ishtar’s revelations, Aquarius hadn’t noticed Sage returning with Aries.
“Hey, boss, was just having lunch and an interesting conversation with Ishtar. The woman who fixed the nanobot.” As Aries extended his hand and began to say, “Nice to meet you,” Aquarius added, “And she’s also the Queen of Mars.”
Sage must have warned Aries because he didn’t freeze but clasped Ishtar’s hand for a firm shake. “I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Your Highness.”
Ishtar snorted. “Call me Ishtar. That title lost all meaning a long time ago.”
“Boss, you won’t believe it, but Tower, real name of Nimrod, was built by Martians and was imbued by an Astraeus that lost its constellation.” Aquarius couldn’t help but blurt out what he’d learned.
Aries arched a brow. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“And the aliens have names. The ones we poisoned are…” He blanked and glanced at Ishtar who murmured, “Saursu, and their masters are the Kukakk.”
“I’ll have to let Asterion and Carlos know. They’ll find something about them in the library archives.”
At Aries’ statement, Ishtar shook her head. “Doubtful they’ll find anything. The humans never encountered them.”
“But the Martians did.” Stated, not asked by Aries.
Her lips pressed tight. “Yes.”
“How did you defeat the Kukakk? It claimed it couldn’t die.”
“Oh, it can die. We killed four on Mars.” Ishtar offered a bitter laugh. “But our success came at the expense of our planet. Hence why the schematic for the weapon was destroyed.”
“That seems unwise, given the possibility of their return,” Aries pointed out.
“What is the point of killing the enemy if it comes at the cost of everything?”
“You speak as if you remember.” The boss tilted his head, and his eyes narrowed.
Her lips twisted. “Because I do.”
“How?” Aquarius blurted out. “Scientists claim Mars died like a billion years ago.”
“Not quite. More like fifteen thousand. Once our atmosphere disappeared, the decline of our planet proved rapid.”
“You’re thousands of years old?” He couldn’t help but squeak. The Zodiac could be long-lived, like Aries at over five hundred, but multiply that a few times and holy insane.
“This body is only a few centuries.” Ishtar looked down at herself before quietly adding, “But I have the memories of that time.”
Leading Sage to murmur, “The heavy weight of the past lands on the shoulders of the heir, a mantle that is passed on in perpetuity to ensure nothing is ever forgotten.”
Somehow that proclamation made it worse. What must it be like to never be allowed to forget the worst thing to ever happen in your life?
“Did Aquarius tell you about the prophecy?” Aries fixed Ishtar with a contemplative stare.
“I thought your name was Reece.” She glanced at him and clucked her tongue. “Of course, I should have known your true identity by the dais we landed on.”
“I use a shortened version when I need to mingle with regular peeps,” his sheepish reply. “But you knew I was a Zodiac.”
Ishtar pinched her lips. “I guess which constellation doesn’t matter.”
“Actually, it might, seeing as how Aquarius is specifically mentioned in the foretelling,” Aries interjected.
“And what exactly did your seer prophesize?”
It wasn’t Aries but rather Sage who intoned in what Aquarius called her creepy voice, “As great evil arises promising destruction, there is but a single, narrow branch to victory. To the dusty red planet, the water bearer must journey to seek audience with the queen who once was. The queen who lost everything fighting the ancient enemy. The queen who will demand the impossible in exchange for saving humanity. But beware, for once the water bearer sets upon this path, there is no return and the stars shall weep.”