Prologue

Ey’os was beautiful for a world that was about to die.

From its colorful, luminescent foliage came the eerie howls of alien beasts sensing their impending annihilation.

The distraught sounds rang in Dr. Ki’cyllus Agoka’ta’s ears and he grit his teeth against them as he flew overhead. With piercing blue eyes and salt and pepper dusting his pale red hair and beard, the man appeared human, excluding the expansive pair of bronze and blue feathered wings flowing from his shoulders. He flapped hard and soared towards the glistening glass and white clad spires in the rapidly approaching distance. As Head of the Av’rahn’ey peoples’ science division, there was only one place he wished to be for the end of his world. In his laboratory completing his magnum opus … his people’s last hope … the Genesis Project.

Shoes skidding briefly on the landing pad, Agoka’ta regained his footing and broke into an urgent run. The familiar corridors were deserted. Papers were strewn and blowing across the floor. Chairs had been left in a state of disarray, pulled out haphazardly or upturned. The middle-aged man was panting for breath by the time he entered the core of the building – the only part of his lab not deserted.

A handful of Agoka’ta’s fellows and technicians loyally remained, focused on the task at hand. He stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the sight of them all. Their pensive expressions and efficient movements were a stark contrast to the normally happy and chaotic workspace he’d come to love. Taking a breath, he composed himself and strode to the heart of the room, an internal geodesic chamber, where thick masses of cable converged around the machine in the center. Something that had become known as a bio-pod. A huge white oval, like a giant egg. Fifteen feet long, eight feet wide, and five feet high. The pearly outer shell glowed faintly, the light pulsating with the machine’s gentle humming.

Stood beside it was an elegant woman. Her willowy form was robed in royal attire, the silken fabric dyed in an ombre from turquoise to ultramarine, each piece edged in gold ribbon. When she looked up at Agoka’ta’s approach, her luxuriously long brown hair swayed like a river between her sleek, pale wings. Her feathers were light cream, tipped in chartreuse, and peppered with blooms of rosy pink. Pain was obvious in her piercing jade green eyes and the tightness of her regal features. Dr. Agoka’ta pulled her close, his hand on the back of her head, pressing their foreheads together as their minds connected.

Ki’cyllus, I’m afraid. Her mental voice trembled.

I know, Ma’hyelle. Stay strong for just a bit longer, then we’ll be at peace, my queen. Agoka’ta comforted.

To Ni’hila’aba the Father be the glory. The Av’rahn’ey matriarch nodded as she fought to keep her lower lip from quivering. Let’s make sure our daughter is ready.

Stepping back a bit, Dr. Agoka’ta lay his hand on the flawless surface of the bio-pod. The technology imbedded in its shell flickered to life and biometric sensors formed a luminous green mandala under his fingertips. There was a soft rushing sound as a seam appeared running horizontally along the length of the pod. The upper half split from the lower and retracted into it without a sound. Both Agoka’ta and Ma’hyelle knelt close to the girl that lay in the pod’s midsection, Agoka’ta gently brushing a strand of her long auburn hair away from her forehead. In response to his touch, she stirred ever so slightly, her wings flickering, at the moment still tender and useless. Opening her eyes and blinking blearily, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she recognized the faces of her parents.

Ma’hy’nami … Agoka’ta’jai.

Dr. Agoka’ta and Queen Ma’hyelle flinched as, even in her semiconscious state, their daughter’s telepathy almost overpowered them.

Agoka’ta smiled, tears in his eyes. That’s my girl.

You’ve gotten so strong. I’m so proud of you. Ma’hyelle added.

Something’s … wrong? She asked.

No, no, Genesis, everything’s fine. We just wanted to make sure you were still feeling well.

I’m okay, but I … I’m just still … so tired. She closed her eyes, exhausted from the mental effort, but her vocal cords were still too delicate to be used.

I know, sweetheart, but listen. We’re going to put you into stasis one more time. When you wake up, you’ll feel better than ever, and we’ll finally be able to take you out of this bio-pod. How does that sound? Agoka’ta asked.

You promise? … We’ll fly together? She smiled weakly.

I promise, we’ll fly together. He struggled to keep his voice from cracking, but his daughter had already slipped back into unconsciousness.

Tears now flowing freely down her cheeks Ma’hyelle gently pulled Agoka’ta off the platform, and he resealed the pod’s protective shell. The two halves slowly closed and became seamless.

Not a second too soon.

A blinding flash exploded through the windows, shattering them, and the floor pitched like a ship on rough seas. Agoka’ta and Ma’hyelle staggered against one another before the former took the latter’s hand and dove to the nearest computer. Holograms flashed past, appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye as the man’s typing fingers poured code through the luminous display. His fellow Av’rahn’ey clung to their stations, refusing to leave, heads bowed as their voices filled the room with wailed and whispered prayers. Within moments, the bio-pod assumed a steady glow, its cables detached, and the machine became self-sustaining.

The Genesis Project was complete.

Clutching Ma’hyelle as she gripped him in return, Agoka’ta looked up and fixed his gaze on a single sapphire shard peeking through a widening crack in the ceiling. As the world literally crumbled around them, he uttered a final prayer of his own.

“Sa’ahk ba, aye, Ni’hila’aba. Sa’ahk ba.”

Protect her, oh, Great Triune Maker. Protect her.

***

It was a plea that didn’t go unseen.

 Hundreds of thousands of miles above the planet’s surface, a massive interstellar cruiser hovered poised like an arrowhead. Admiral Malek Xias sneered as his battleship’s targeting system locked in on Dr. Agoka’ta. His keen reptilian eyes read the dying man’s lips. The also human-looking being flexed his huge draconian wings, iridescent red scales gleaming. The spade shaped tip of his tail flicked viciously around his legs as he growled in the Jallak language of Yaeta.

“There will be no protection for your pathetic little science experiment, you hopeless fool.”

The gaze of his cold, dark eyes slid to the right. Dominating the viewing shield, a massive column of searing light pulsed through space, toward the heart of Ey’os. In mere minutes, the beam would burn its way to the planet’s core and the insignificant world would be obliterated. Xias grinned at the thought of what this victory would bring him. At long last, he would end the battle, and the thorn in the side of the Jallak would be wiped from the stars. The seemingly tireless Av’rahn’ey mission of faith and healing in their singular, triune god, would die in the inferno of their last remaining home. Snapping himself out of his premature revelry, Xias turned his eyes to the panel of technicians in front of him.

“How long until complete destruction?!” he barked.

“Estimated time is three minutes, sir,” answered one of his underlings.

“That’s not good enough. Increase the power!”

“Sir, if we go above sixty percent, we risk the thermal core overheating,” another lackey ventured.

Xias’s eyes locked on the man and cocked his head in a predatory lean. “You’d rather risk a … demotion … then?”

The technician’s copper scaled wings trembled as he paled and hurriedly turned back to his station. Gripping a lever on the sprawling console, he slowly began to push it forwards. The laser’s intensity magnified, its white center surrounded by an angry red-orange corona. The planet Ey’os at last began to split. Canyon sized cracks appeared over its entire circumference, spewing tsunamis of magma over the surface.

“Approaching seventy percent. Two minutes and thirty seconds until planet destruction, sir.”

“Increase it again,” Xias insisted.

His lesser officer swallowed nervously as he clicked the control bar up by another factor of ten. “Output levels raised to eighty percent. One minute and forty-seven seconds until planet destruction.”

With a growl worthy of his half-dragon appearance, the irate commander stormed down from his admiral’s deck.

“I SAID … INCREASE IT AGAIN!” he roared and thrust the lever to maximum.

The battleship trembled as the blinding column of energy dilated to its ultimate width. Gleaming fissures erupted across the skin of the planet. Then a blinding explosion ripped through the solar system. When Admiral Xias and his crew uncovered their eyes, Ey’os was nothing but a halo of asteroids and dust.

They all failed to see the sparkling white comet hurtling away from the blast.

…

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

One

Error: Door Not Found

… Wake up, Genesis. It’s time …

My eyes snapped open.

Was that a voice, or had I just been imagining things?

I blinked, trying to kickstart my senses. There was little more than an inch gap between the tip of my nose and the layer of gel padding above me. Its pale greenish glow was soothingly familiar, as were the sensations of the life-support tubes suctioned to my limbs and torso. At that moment I felt them gently detach and retract to some deeper recess of the machine. I winced as I rotated my arms and tried to turn my legs, my joints stiff from lying in the same position for an unknown period of time. Other than that, everything seemed operational. My ears pricked, spine tingling as the rest of my faculties came online. I was sure I heard muffled noises beyond the thick shell. If I was awake, shouldn’t my father have opened the pod by then?

I wet my lips. “Ag … Agoka’ta’jai? … Ma’hy’nami?”

My voice came out faint and raspy, my tongue feeling like sandpaper, but at least I knew my vocal cords finally worked. I was sure I was hearing muffled noises outside now. Curious, I closed my eyes and stretched my telepathic field into a big bubble that reached through the surrounding layers. The outlines of shapes slowly materialized in various intensities of gold against a black background, coalescing to form a picture of what was going on outside. Most of the images kept shifting in and out of focus, but one thing was crystal clear – I was somewhere new.

There was a huge tent around the pod, with metal walkways stretching around its interior that branched away into four corridors. Blurry, indistinct figures hurried along the raised trails. More of them paced slowly around me – or, well, the bio-pod to be more specific. Some had tablets and looked to be writing things down. Others carried hand-held devices that scanned my shell’s surface. They were talking to one another, but I couldn’t make out any recognizable words. While using my telepathy mainly to see, their emotions were indistinct, but I was able to sense a general aura of wary curiosity, awe, and fear. An involuntary shiver zigzagged down my spine. I pulled back my mental sight and opened my eyes to stare at the plush jade-colored walls of my prison.

I struggled and pushed at the bio-pod’s upper half. Where’s the door on this thing?

As I tried to turn my head, I encountered resistance from something against the back of my neck and froze. After a second, I reached over and felt a thin cable running up from the gel bed. My fingers felt up the plasticky wire to the back of my neck. I traced the dull edges of something hard embedded just under my skin at the junction between skull and spine. The cord’s small, rectangular head was fit into the spot. I could feel a hum of what I could only describe as data streaming in and out of me, like the cable was wired right into my nerves, bypassing my brain completely. Focusing more on the sensation, I physically felt something in the bottom of my skull go –

*tch!*

It was like a switch flipped and that informational hum gushed up into my head. Little bits of white light flickered before my eyes, soon solidifying into diagrams, shapes, and words. I could see my heart rate, blood pressure, as well as the status of most of my other organs.

Okay, uh … Agoka’ta’jai never told me how to work this thing. Can you tell me where I am? I asked in my mind.

A new little screen popped up in the middle of the ensemble displaying two words in bright red letters.

Alkba Mehjan

Request Denied? What? Why? I frowned.

A reply materialized:

Piyo Katamahnte

Data Unavailable

But WHY is the data unavailable? I asked again.

A second rebuttal appeared:

Sehnkeba Shioshsen Kiok Pahnkete eo Tehkente Ehloto Untejah

Biological Sustainment Unit Incapable of Locating Viable Information

I scrunched up my lips with an irritated scowl, wriggling my shoulders in discomfort as the feather shafts along my spine were pressed deeper into my skin. Lying on my back was not an optimal position. I had to get out of my pod somehow. I needed to go find my parents.

Alright, fine. If you won’t tell me where I am, I’ll just go look for myself … Open the doors. I ordered.

…

Nothing happened.

The icons on my mental screen shifted lazily. Everything remained quiet. The numbers indicating my blood pressure ticked up a few times. I let out a squeal of frustration and tried to kick and punch my way through the bio-pod’s lid. Given my proximity to the padded ceiling, I could only raise my arms and legs a few inches. Not nearly enough to do much of anything. I flopped back and puffed away a strand of hair that had gotten in my face.

Stupid piece of junk. What’s the point of keeping me alive in here if I can’t even get out?! I silently fumed.

After a few seconds, I closed my eyes and reached out with my telepathy again, feeling beyond the boundaries of my imprisoning shell. This time, I encountered an empty tent, no life-forms within my mental sight or sense.

Okay, let’s try this again. I took a deep breath. Come on, you can do this. Just one word. Just tell it what to do.

I focused all my concentration on the information streaming through the cable in my neck. I could almost picture it, like a glowing river of electrical impulses shooting through the winding mass of wires, mirroring the synapses of my own brain. Locking onto that feeling, I followed it to the mainframe’s core. Its rhythmic humming pulsed in time with the double beats of my twin hearts. I opened my eyes, a single word on my mind and lips.

“Tojkah.”

(Open.)

There was a series of repetitive clicks as a number of locking mechanisms disengaged. With a hiss, a seam split open above me, letting in a gust of fresh, cold air. I gasped in a deep breath of it, blinking and squinting as bright light flooded in to assault my newly awakened senses. It made me reflexively bring my arms up to shield my face until the cloudiness faded and everything came back in sharp focus. I then maneuvered my hands under the long feathers at my sides and pushed myself into sitting up. The cord still attached to my neck spooled out to allow my movement, so I left it alone for the moment as I looked around.

There wasn’t really much to see – just four blank fabric walls, four hallways winding out of sight, and the metal catwalks leading into them. It reminded me of the little portion I’d seen of Dr. Agoka’ta’s lab during the few times I’d been conscious there.

I wonder if this is a new workspace somewhere. I pondered as I massaged the stiffness out of my legs.

After a few seconds, I scooched across the pod’s gel bed until I was sitting on the edge, my feet dangling over the bare ground below. I winced as I slipped down and pulled my wings after me. My shoulders felt exceptionally tender. I couldn’t help but notice as my feathered limbs moved that I had more than one pair. There were three identical wings on either side of me, a large, medium, and small one stacked together, all shiny and golden.

I stared. I don’t remember Agoka’ta’jai or Ma’hy’nami having more than two wings. Did Agoka’ta’jai’s tests make me this way?

Deciding that would be one of the many questions I’d ask when I found my parents, I turned towards the nearest doorway. I’d just put my foot onto the first of the three steps leading to the catwalk when I felt a tug on the back of my neck. I reached back to feel the cable still plugged into me was now taught.

I guess that’s as far as you go.

Tightening my fingers around it, I gave the cord a yank and felt it smoothly pop out. A sudden rush of freedom washed over me as I was completely released from the bio-pod’s leash. The medical holograms surrounding my vision slowly faded as I let go of the cable and watched it zip back to the pod and disappear. The pod itself then began to luminesce and hum as its doors began to close, sealing shut with a click and a hiss. I was really on my own now.

Alright … let’s see what’s out there. Taking a deep breath, I stepped up onto the catwalk and slipped silently down the hall.

I reached out with telepathic feelers, trying to get a deeper sense of this strange, new place. The first twenty feet of corridor was deserted, nothing but cold metal framing under plastic and canvas skin. The material rippled every once in a while, like there was a breeze outside. I had to resist the urge to tear through it and go galivanting into the unknown. I had no idea what might be waiting for me on the other side. I called out instead.

“Hibjah?” (Hello?)

A light wind whispered outside the tent.

“Ot sobeo tahu?” I tried again. (Is anyone there?)

No answer.

The feathers on my back fluffed in excitement, wings twitching and flexing at the anticipation of running into someone. It wasn’t until I was almost at the end of the passage that I did. Too focused on my surroundings, I’d half forgotten to look ahead. A flicker of movement in front of me caught my attention and I stumbled to a stop. I stood frozen for a second before my ears reddened in embarrassment when I realized who I was seeing. At the end of the tunnel was a door with a very reflective surface. The person I was seeing was me.

“Aye’yah,” I breathed and shook my head with a smile of relief.

I stepped closer to the door, curiously looking myself over. I’d never seen what I looked like before. My hair was an odd shade of copper – just like Dr. Agoka’ta’s – and came down almost to my waist. In contrast, my skin was a warm ivory, like Ma’hy’nami’s. I looked a lot younger than them though, and my eyes were different too. Instead of my father’s rich sky blues or my mother’s pale jades, my irises were all different colors. The hues spiraled around my pupils in opposite directions in each eye, blending from vivid scarlet to bright orange, lemon, peridot, cyan, violet, and magenta.

Then I shivered and noted I was a little lacking in the wardrobe department to say the least. A simple wrap of white, silky, elastic material hugged my chest and ribs. Matching shorty-shorts were plastered around my waist, hips, and thighs, leaving my middle exposed. My cheeks suddenly felt hot and my wings tightened against my body.

I can’t leave here looking like this. I glanced around for something to cover up with. Maybe I should just go back to my pod and wait for Agoka’ta’jai to come get me.

As I stood contemplating what to do, something suddenly came within range of my telepathic tendrils. Every feather prickled down my spine. There was an odd … flexing sensation … somewhere behind my eyes. My vision rapidly sharpened to an almost painful degree of detail. Combined with my telepathy, it was like my consciousness was moving while my body stayed in place. Just beyond the door where I stood, down a short section of corridor, and around the left fork in the tunnel, there was a figure – a middle-aged man with greying hair and square glasses dressed in a floor-length white coat. He stood with his back against the wall, clutching a clip board so hard his knuckles were turning the same shade as his coat. Even from a distance, I somehow could hear his heart hammering as he took shallow gasps of air and nervously glanced toward my hallway. A second later, I snapped back into myself.

Is he one of Agoka’ta’jai’s assistants? I wondered. Maybe he heard me shouting, but if he did, why isn’t he coming to help me?

“Hibjah?” I called softly, creeping forward.

My bare feet made no sound as I tiptoed closer and peeked around the bend, just as the man turned his head. He all but stopped breathing, and his eyes went so wide they might’ve fallen out of his head if given the chance. A thrilled smile spread across my face at the sight of another living person. I raised a hand in a wave.

"Secsan! Se’hale ishitekta. Sa’a hale ua’tu sec kiagk sai,” (Hello! Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you).

The man let out a garbled yelp and stumbled back, tripping over his own feet before picking himself up and running away. At that point I gasped and recoiled too, because as he turned, I saw his back.

He didn’t have wings!

I stood in shock, staring down the now empty hallway. He’d looked otherwise like my kind, but … but no wings?! What was he that he didn’t have them?! Maybe there were other beings in existence that were born without them. But where would people like that even come from?

Then a new thought hit me with a hurricane ton of force.

Was I even on Ey’os anymore?

I was jolted back to my present situation when my senses started tingling again.

A new presence had entered my still extended telepathic field. Before I could center on it or even turn around, there was a faint puffing noise. A sharp burst of pain bloomed in my lower thigh.

“Pahla!”

Yelping a mild expletive, I caught myself before I could crumple and clutched at my leg. I stared down in utter bewilderment at the small, neon-orange-plumed metal cylinder with its needle tip embedded in my skin. Suddenly I started feeling dizzy and tired. My vision blurred and concentration faltered. In a rush, it dawned on me what was happening and my two hearts pounded in panic. I’d just woken up! No way was I going to let anyone put me back to sleep!

Gritting my teeth, I shook off the dizziness, adrenaline pumping through me like high-octane fuel. I grabbed the dart, yanked it out of my leg, and whipped in the direction it had come from. The shooter crouched just behind the fork of the next corridor with the barrel of a tranquilizer gun aimed straight at me.

“No! Not again!” I shouted at him.

He froze, eyes widening behind his helmet’s face shield. I didn’t even know if these weird wingless could understand the Av’ohken I was speaking, but I wasn’t about to stay and ask. I used the man’s momentary hesitation to my advantage.

Whirling, I took off in the opposite direction and dodged down another passage as a second shot clipped the wall behind me.