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Lobora was a bustling city that stretched far and wide on its tropical planet. It had gleaming modern buildings that reached upwards wrapped in vines and flowers, historic avenues with romantic places to visit on warm evenings, and plenty of recreational locations to enjoy. The streets throughout were framed with palm trees and cords of hanging moss flowed from lamp to lamp along the sidewalks. People on bicycles and scooters moved from here to there going about their business and busy days. The smell of street food and fresh markets huddled around the ankles of the towers, and music bands played in the parks just for the hell of it. Lobora was but one of the lustrous business centers for the inner planets, and it shined as such.
Stevero pulled the seahawk around and landed on a docking pad in a quieter section of the city. Quayl hopped off while the bike was registered and locked down for parking. He breathed in the abundant and clear air, feeling a fresh ending to the ordeal he experienced, and let it all out with a sigh of relief. Stevero was on a mission, however, and he was aiming for the stairs that led down and away from the platform. Quayl retrieved his bonsai and tightened the strap of the satchel bag over his shoulder.
“I guess we can part ways now,” Stevero told him. “I’m sure you can find a cozier passage home than the Aerios. Maybe we’ll see you around.” Stevero gave Quayl a nonchalant salute and continued to walk off, likely heading to the nearest pharmacy for Captain Junne’s medicine. Quayl proceeded as well.
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The post office was quiet and dead with not a letter out of place. A girl at the counter wore a green hooded uniform just like Quayl’s own. She looked bored and half asleep from the pace of her surroundings. It was nice to see a coworker in familiar attire.
“Hi,” Quayl spoke as he lifted the satchel bag onto the countertop and rested his bonsai on the floor. “I need all this to be forwarded. I’m unable to carry out the order.”
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“Oh.” She was surprised, “Did something happen?” She carefully removed the hard drives from the satchel and then un-carefully dumped the paper letters into a sorting bin. With a helpless breath, he told her.
“Namina attacked the ship I was on headed for Horusa.” The girl stopped and took a moment to realize it.
“Horusa isn’t far from here,” Quayl confirmed with a nod. She continued. “Still, the Namina mostly work in isolated cells, usually just two or three, like pirates. They usually don’t have the firepower to destroy a ship. They wouldn’t be brave enough to attack a planet, much less attack Lobora.” She wasn’t aware of what she was saying.
“I need to get a message out on the QE relay.” The girl tossed him a set of keys and he caught them. “Thanks.”
Quayl stepped around the counter to the back rooms of the post office. With a stiff click and shove, he unlocked the equipment room and hit an ‘on’ button for a large wall-mounted console. A few of the screens lit up and displayed data and channels for instantaneous communications.
The QE communications relay — or quantum entanglement relay — wasn’t as fancy as it seemed. For three whole decades engineers have tried to make an applicable system for it. It was a costly process to make two devices since they needed to be near enough to each other for the entanglement to happen. It didn’thelp that the machine that read and writes the data was as large as a house. Each entanglement had to be made and shipped to every other planet for it to have a connection, and all other planets had to do the same. It was a hell of an effort to get that far. The worst part is that the relays had no means of security, so it was a system of emergency and immediate responses only done by the couriers of the planets — now you know.
The keyboard was dusty, the keys stuck to one another, and the monitors had dead pixels scattered and yellow tinting about them. It hadn’t been very well taken care of but QE relays get forgotten sometimes, especially ones in post offices. He pulled up a map screen and saw the various locations of other planets. The dots and names were either green or red to display whether the relay was online or offline. Quayl stopped to look. Between the outer planets and inner planets, all of the outer ones were red and showed they were offline. Red dots encircled the inner planets and it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
A green dot, Jordan’s Point, went red and offline, further inward from the ring of red. Finn Town went from green to red as well shortly after. Quayl typed his message furiously saying that the Namina were coming. He listed the coordinates of the attack in his message and described what he had witnessed. He noted the pillaging of the plants, the powerful energy weapon that disintegrated the transport ship, and that he was the only survivor. Terrifyingly, Horusa’s little green dot went offline. The Namina were traveling in a straight line for Lobora. He hit the send button, but an error came up on the console. He hit it again, and again, but the message wouldn’t send. To his grave misfortune, the dilapidated console shorted out and took the lights out with it. It blew the circuit breaker. The entire office and its equipment were out of electricity.
“Not again! The relay likes to do that.” The girl at the front counter yelled. Quayl left the console in a blank and useless state, and he swiftly headed out. “Hey.” The girl stopped him. “It’ll take a moment for the circuits to cool down. You wanna grab a coffee?” Quayl stood frozen. The Namina was coming and he couldn’t stay another minute.
“I… I need to go.” He said. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s a shame. I’m Heather, by the way. When you have a moment sometime later, I’ll be here. I know a great place to eat.” She was interested in him. He extended his hand to her anyway and shook hers.
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“I’m Quayl. Nice to meet you.” She smiled sweetly. He couldn’t imagine what would happen next with the Namina on their way. He wished he could save her somehow, but he planned to ride back to the Aerios with Stevero, and the seahawk was only fitted for two people. With nothing else he could do, he grabbed his bag and bonsai then headed for the door feeling numb and shaken.
“Quayl, was it?” She asked. “I actually have a letter for you here.” He stopped and turned.
“You do?”
“Yeah! Looks like a fancy one too.” She held it out and gave it to him. It was unmarked, with no postage, no return address, just fancy filigree and his name inscribed on the envelope with a picture of a bonsai.
“Thanks.” He slipped the letter into his pocket and left quickly, not looking back at the girl who had butterflies for him.
Quayl was waiting for Stevero at the Seahawk. He had the medicine and a few other things that were needed in a plastic bag.
“What are you doing here?” Stevero questioned, not prepared at all to be taking Quayl back with him.
“I’m going with you.” He stated. Stevero paused for a moment and noticed Quayl was uneasy, even disturbed by something.
“Are… you alright?” He asked.
“I… we… need to get out of here.” Stevero could sense the urgency.
“Ok, my business here is done, so let’s go. Hop on.” Stevero fired up the bike and hovered it high into the air towards the ocean. Quayl looked back with tremendous sorrow. His heart ached for the unsuspecting people of Lobora. He hoped that the local defenses were sufficient to fight the coming attack. Once clear of the planet, Stevero punched the bike into light speed straight for the return trip to the Aerios.
Stevero and Captain Junne waited in the engineering bay. Junne was stressed while Rob relaxed sitting on the heavy loader with a crossword puzzle book in his hands. Stevero and Quayl landed smoothly, and Junne cheered once happily for the returning friends.
“Hey guess what!? We got another eel! Just reeled it in ten minutes ago! We can head home anytime!” He was proud of himself. He should be, too, it was often his keen eye that did the shooting. He stopped and noticed Quayl had returned with Stevero. “Hey! You came back!” He shouted.
“I… did. What’s up?” He hesitated and couldn’t feel any more uneasy. Junne frowned at him, detecting something strange with his mannerisms.
“Why?” He asked. Stevero shrugged.
“I don’t know but he’s a bit nervous about something.” He pondered and was awaiting an explanation. Quayl sighed and took a deep breath to speak, but Junne interrupted him.
“You killed someone, didn’t you? You’re on the run!” He joked. It wasn’t funny but Rob snickered from the back of the bay. Quayl shook his head.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Where are we headed?” He asked. Captain chimed in.
“Home to Alphana.” Quayl was relieved. It was further in with the inner planets than Lobora.
Quayl joined Stevero and Junne on the bridge after a long unnerving shower. He didn’t feel like eating at all and hoped his appetite would eventually come back. Stevero was giving Junne a dose of his medicine. He swallowed the pill with a glug of fruit punch, then sat his cup back into the drink holder by the pilot’s seat and turned to Quayl.
“I bet you’re wondering what my deal is?” Junne began. “I’m a little odd and I know that. Just need some medicine once in a while to help me focus. I’m a neuro detergent or something like that." Stevero chuckled.
“Divergent.” He corrected him. “He’s just wired a little differently. Doesn’t hinder his piloting and shooting skills one bit.” Quayl’s heart was still heavy, jokes and joy were lost on him. Junne laughed hard once.
“Ha! That’s why you call me Captain!” He blurted out. Stevero agreed with him
“You’re captain because your family paid the down payment for the ship.”
Rob decided to join everyone on the bridge and ask about dinner. He was cleaned up and spotless, likely working up an appetite from hard work.
“What’s everyone wanting for dinner?” He asked. Junne thought for a moment while everyone else shrugged.
“Burritos?” Junne threw out there. Around the room were nods.
“That sounds good,” Stevero added. Quayl put his hands in his pockets and rediscovered the letter addressed to him. He had nearly forgotten about it. He took it out and opened it with a slide of a finger along the flap. Unfolding the page, it was blank except for a set of coordinates. Quayl was genuinely confused.
“Huh.” He spoke and didn’t know what to think. Junne was curious though.
“Whatcha got there?” He asked and Quayl showed him the page.
“Just a set of coordinates. Do you know where this is?” He asked and gave Junne the paper.
“Somewhere in a very cloudy part of a sector kinda far away.”
“Oh ok. It doesn’t say who it’s from. Seems kinda important by the envelope.” Quayl shrugged.
Junne spun around in the pilot’s seat and started hitting buttons and switches.
“Alright, quick stop then it’s home to Alphana.” He announced. Quayl jerked alive with the thought.
“Quick stop?” Junne then smiled widely.
“Yeah, at Lobora to drop off our payload, then home.” Before Quayl could think, the ship dropped out of light speed off the shoulder of Lobora.
The scene was pure devastation. Before everyone was a shattered planet stripped of all plants, and its cities laid in waste on large floating chunks adrift in the ocean. Not a breath of air could be seen, and debris from both defense ships and skyscrapers littered the ocean all around. Junne, Stevero, Rob, and Quayl were paralyzed through and through as they watched the slow current shift the debris. His body felt ethereal and his mind was unbelieving. Junne had started weeping quietly to himself, and Rob was on an entirely new level of anger. Moments went by in silence before Junne hit the radio. Nothing but static on all frequencies. He tried the Doppler radar, something that wasn’t meant to be used near planets because of the intense radio interference, but this was a special case. It picked up no life signs, no trapped oxygen, not even fire or electricity. The planet looked more like an asteroid reef filled only with twisted metal and graves. Quayl finally broke the silence.
“Namina.” He whispered. Everyone turned to him. Stevero spoke first.
“We were here just over an hour ago… Quayl, did you know about this?”
“I did. I couldn’t get a message out from the QE relay. I saw the signals die out one by one on the map screen. The Namina are working their way inward from the outside. We’re surrounded.” He told them flatly. He felt hopeless.
“Someone got a message out,” Junne spoke up and pointed out the letter in his hand. “If I was going to hide anywhere, it’d be there in those clouds.” He stated. He turned to the controls and laid in the coordinates. “Maybe they know what’s going on?” He wondered. The Aerios rotated itself to point towards the coordinates from Quayl’s letter, and without hesitation, he hit it to light speed.