Beyond the Sky: Chapter 2
Close Encounters
Velli paused. The thug’s companions seemed unwilling to take him up on it. Maybe she could wait until nightfall, sneak back out after they left, and the Pit’s occupants would trouble her not. Pausing and waiting with patience forged by a year in the Jepsei National Front, those long nights waiting to ambush a Mespreth supply truck or prisoner transfer, she let minutes crawl by, then an hour. Peeking through the trees, she saw, just beyond the bridge, a campfire on the riverbank and slavers standing watch. No, they’d wait her out. Revenge for their dead comrades and master, she supposed. She’d made it personal.
It was them, or the Shadowstalkers. Maybe she could get away, find another exit nearby? She slunk away into the dark, hoping to remain unobserved. Then, a chittering in the trees and a chill in her bones told her how foolish she was.
She’d felt this only a few times before—the presence of a Shadowstalker. Once on a dark road, walking home from school, and again behind her house, when she still had her parents and they sent her out to get one of Mekim’s toys. It chilled her veins, left her unable to speak. In the darkness she saw little, just trees, stars, and zodiacal light. Unslinging her rifle, she pushed back the safety lever.
Something scampered past behind her. Creatures climbed in the trees and bushes, whispering in a strange tongue. Many of them—too many to fight, even if they lacked weapons, and Shadowstalkers never ran once they had numbers. The dim light caught one just right, and she saw a pair of reflective eyes staring back. Fear gripped her throat, she ran. Cackling and yelping, the Shadowstalkers followed. From outside, she might’ve heard the slavers shout.
Amid the trees was a narrow path, she followed it past crumbling brick walls riddled with bullet holes, then the wreck of a burned-out car, and burst out into an overgrown street. This had been a town before the Long War; she knew not its name. Overhead, black blurs leapt to the walls of a destroyed house. Down the street was an open square, its cobblestone paving overgrown and two trees sprouting up. The Shadowstalkers held back, seemingly unwilling to pursue her into such an open space. Over a rise in the distance hung a dull orange glow, perhaps the village still burning.
Surrounding the square were smashed-out fronts of old stores, ruined apartments overhead. She stumbled backward, felt her leg hit something, and a series of dusty grey objects clattered to the ground.
Bones. They littered a cooking pit an armspan across, atop metal grates covering old charcoal. One was a skull, with circular eye sockets and a short round muzzle. Cepic.
Velli wondered the slavers might’ve been a better choice.
Shadowstalkers surrounded her, now. Their eyes glinted in empty window-frames, she turned around and saw a spindly limb snap back into a doorway. Reaching for her flashlight, she flicked it on.
Screeching rent the air. The beam cast shadows here and there, which seemed to move, approaching. She guessed she had only seconds to live.
Closing her eyes and throwing up her hands, she pleaded:
“Don’t kill me, please! The slavers hurt you too, I know! I’m JNF, we want to stop them—we fought them, and the Regime, too!” Footsteps made it sound as if one stood right in front of her, but she dared not look lest the other strike her down. The light outside her eyelids shifted as her flashlight was moved, then turned off. “I...I had a brother.” Her voice was almost a whisper now. The slavers took him. I’d like to see him again. Please.”
The Shadowstalkers chittered some more, then grew silent. She kept her eyes closed, until she felt the breeze on her face and heard the rustle of the leaves. Opening them, she found the square deserted. Her rifle lay on the cobblestones, but not the flashlight. She glanced up at the zodiacal light and went for a wide street on the other side.
The pitter-patter of little feet told her she still wasn’t alone. Ruined market stalls lined the road, things moving in the darkness behind, then she reached a hill. Atop was a chain-link fence, warning signs on its other side, she climbed and found a gap big enough to squeeze through.
Flopping over on her back, she let out an exhale. Over the fence, a pebble arced up and fell down to thud off her shoulder. And stay out!
She made her way back to the village. The fires seemed to be dying down now, she weaved through the trees and hid in the brush as she approached.
A glaring blue-white light shone into her eyes, for a terrifying instant she thought she’d been spotted again. Just a lamp, she realized. A high-powered electric light, mounted on...something.
How had she not heard it land?
Sitting in an open space, the very area where the squad had battled the slavers and their hired Flyers not hours ago, was a maroon-and-black triangular aircraft. Not a copter, an airplane, about the size of those little jets the rich used, but wider like a wedge, with wings that blended into its body and a twin tailfin. At its front she spotted the cockpit, lit by a red glow. Empty. Lights projected from illuminated spots on its outside, and a hatch sat folded open in two halves, showing a bright white interior.
She looked around. No occupants were in evidence, and she wished for a camera. Whose plane was this? The tail bore markings in some strange script, nothing she recognized. A more prudent fighter might flee, especially after surviving a descent into the Pit, but Velli crept from the treeline. She approached the craft, aiming left and right. No guards—or stupid ones, to let her get this close. She saw its landing gear had no wheels, rather a trio of flat plates extended down on stilts. Stopping beside the fuselage, she looked up and felt it. Smooth and polished, with not a rivet or weld in sight.
The whole thing had a deep strangeness to it. She could go in, if she wanted: the open hatch, with a stairway folded down, beckoned. Madness, she thought, and had half the mind to toss in a grenade until she remembered she had none.
Taking a breath, she swung around in front of the stairs and ascended. The door seemed taller than it should, she entered and wheeled right, aiming down the cabin. Empty too. No people, just strange-looking seats and boxy containers of some kind fastened to the walls. Stripes on the ceiling glowed a uniform white, no sign of internal bulbs. To left was the cockpit door, closed and with no obvious handle. She tried some of the cupboard-like containers nearby, pulling at a tab which opened one to reveal little glass slabs filed away like books. She plucked one out and examined it. Glyphs began to glow and move in one corner, and she became afraid.
Was this magic? Her teachers had said it didn’t exist—this was a scientific age, after all, even if people in Jepsei didn’t yet have computers or those portable phones. But her teachers also worked for the Regime, and she’d learned much of her homeland’s real history elsewhere.
She put the little glass pane back in its place, and resolved to leave. She descended the stairs, looked left, and froze.
The thing which faced her seemed equally surprised. It was monstrous in form, like a misshapen Cepic: long arms and legs, shoulders too broad and neck too thin, and muzzle-less head concealed under a helmet.
It pointed and shouted in an incomprehensible language. Uttering a primal scream, Velli raised her rifle and held the trigger down. The weapon kicked her shoulder, pumping out bullet after bullet. The monster staggered, stumbled, almost fell, then recovered its footing when her ammo ran out. She swore, eyes widening.
Her hand went to her knife, drew back, and threw it. The blade spun forward dead-on, then curved away. The monster never touched it, its head followed its path to a landing in the grass.
She turned to run, and discovered three more behind her. One got her by the arm, she tried to punch but it felt like hitting a pillow. Another raised an object like a lens-less flashlight. Its front popped off, stuck on Velli’s forehead, and the world turned sideways.
An instant later, she jerked awake. More than instant—she now lay back at the treeline, and rolled just in time to see the aircraft’s hatch swing shut and cut off the white light. Grabbing her rifle, she stood. A sound rose from the craft, like a hum, then—Velli’s jaw hung open and she nearly dropped her rifle—it floated into the air. The flat-bottomed landing legs retracted with the slightest of thumps, leaving it hovering a heightspan or two above the ground. No flames or exhaust, Velli marveled, and for a moment forgot her fear. The craft turned nose towards her, dark shapes visible in its cockpit, and rose above the treetops. Engines at its rear came to life with a roar, and it boosted away. She ran out into the open, just in time to see it arc up and ascend through a wispy night cloud.
The only thing that went through her mind was: Now who’s ever going to believe me?
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