“Hey Syn we arrive in two hours,” The soldiers outside the cabin door reminded with an aggressive pounding. The soldiers could tell the lights were off and they heard no noise. It was easy to assume the Syn they begrudgingly protected were sleeping.

  “They don’t seem too happy guarding us,” Quintek chuckled with his inner monologue as he sat in the corner of the small cabin fiddled with a desk lamp. He examined the plastic light fixture with an inquisitive eye, bending the neck back and forth while flashing the light on and off.

  “Helping them will change their opinion of us,” Agra’s wordless voice reverberated in his mind as she reclined peacefully on the fold out bed with shut eyes.

  “I’m sure,” Quintek replied skeptically. He soothed the lingering pain of the gunshot wound beneath his wrappings. It hurt him to see the strips of gauze covering Agra’s face. Both of them had paid the price for finding the humans. It was a price Agra was frustratingly willing to pay.

  “Why are you helping me if you feel that way?” Agra asked as she touched his thoughts.

  “I don’t think I have that choice anymore,” Quintek lamented. He slammed the lamp back on the little desk and went to the small circular port hole. The pale white light of blurred stars filtering through the thick porthole illuminated his red conflicted stare.

  “Quintek,” Agra worried.

  “I don’t know what thoughts are mine anymore!” Quintek snapped with a very vocal hiss of the sacred tongue. He raised his open palms and curled his clawed hands into feeble fists. Agra soothed his mind with a pleasant hum that dulled his emotions and washed away his frustrated thoughts. She had dragged him into this and nearly gotten him killed yet he could no longer imagine a life without her. He was powerless to defy her will. She was reading his thoughts even now.

  “You think the Queens aren’t slaves of their own will?” Agra confessed fearfully. “I hardly understand the terrible resolve you awakened within me and I’m afraid of what I’m capable of. I can hear the voices of the stars. They haunt my thoughts, are my thoughts. I can barely make sense of what they say and when I do they make me question what I really want. Helping the humans is the only way I can prove to myself that I’m still in control. I don’t want to lose myself like the Queens.”

  Agra was sitting up now with a pleading look in her amber eyes. She did understand.

  “Is this the madness that corrupts our race?” Quintek wondered with dismay.

  Blank detached stares followed Captain Dennis York as he made his morning rounds through the cramped grimy mining tunnels which had become their prison. Flickering electric lights illuminated the gaunt sickly faces which considered him with vague contempt. A certain amount of pride compelled the Captain to retain his fleet officer’s uniform though his clean well kept attire served as a constant reminder of the ones who had abandoned them. Dennis York didn’t care about that. He spent the time mending his frayed clothing sure that one day SMCAF would find a way to rescue them. A constant chorus of hoarse whimpers and feeble shouts pleaded for Captain York’s attention as he acknowledged the huddled groups passing around canteens of filtered water with a hopeless frown. After two and a half years it was easy to feel abandoned.

  “I have a good feeling about today,” claimed the ever optimistic lieutenant Able Mckendrick as his captain strode into the operations center with his usual defeated look. Electrical conduits snaked across the walls and ceiling of the stone chamber feeding information into rows of equipment stowed wherever they would fit. A small group of officers dutifully maintained communications with the rest of SMCAF as well as monitor data from the few remote observation posts left above ground. Lieutenant Able as always was there. The loyal young man was the last of his original crew and had pledged to stay by his Captains side to the end. Years had passed since Captain York had found himself the sudden leader of his prison and yet Able remained.

  “Any change in status?” Captain York asked as he leaned over a constantly updated map of the surface.

  “No,” Able said. “No recent communications with SMCAF, or notable change in Syn activity. Their disorganized attempts to dig up the entrance continue unabated.”

  “Then why is it a good day?” Captain York sighed.

  “Nobody died this morning,” Able frowned.

  “A small victory I suppose,” Captain York conceded. He rubbed his graying hair and let himself fall into a chair. He was adjusting the worn buttons on his officer’s jacket when one of the communications officers stood up with a loud exclamation.

  “We’re receiving a live transmission from orbit!” she exclaimed.

  “From orbit?” Captain York repeated skeptically. He knew the Syncline fleet was gone but had not expected any visitors considering how hopeless SMCAF considered their situation. The holographic image manifesting in the center of the room was a welcome surprise regardless. At least it wasn’t another prerecorded message pledging vapid support.

  “Glad to see you’re doing well Captain York,” Minister Margret Singh began cordially as her life sized hologram stabilized beneath the bank of projectors.

  “For what do we owe this pleasure?” Captain York said crossing his arms humorlessly. He was trying very hard to keep his expectations in check and his first question was obvious.

  “I’ll go ahead and confirm what you must be thinking” Margret Singh chuckled. “The 4th composite group has been organized to rescue you. Today is the day you’ve been promised all these years.”

  The room exploded with applause. Captain York remained quiet with his hands crossed as he processed the implications of her impossible words. The room slowly settled down as the others noticed their Captain’s unchanged expression of doubt.

  “How?” he demanded calmly, “The Syn may have abandoned the system, but have you forgotten the soldiers they left on the surface. How do you expect to clear them out without killing us too? What’s your plan?”

  “Something we never considered,” Minister Singh replied matter-of-factly. “This time we have some outside help though I’m not sure how you’re going to like it. Please keep an open mind.”

  Minister Singh let her enigmatic words sink in for a moment before allowing two Syncline to stride into frame. They both wore what amounted to SMCAF uniforms, gray wrappings of battle tunic material covering their thin feather draped bodies. One was a black feathered soldier with vicious red eyes, but the other was different. It displayed regal red feathers unlike any Syn soldier and wore a conical golden helmet with spiked protrusions like a headdress. Strips of gauze crisscrossed its flat oval beaked face. This Syn regarded Captain York with friendly amber eyes as the Syn soldier introduced himself with a raspy hissing voice.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Hello Captain. I am Quintek and this is Agra. We are here to rescue you.”

  Captain York responded with a perplexed look, a hint of anger in his silent tight lipped expression. The others standing around the command center were equally as stunned.

  “Agra is a Syncline Queen. She can telepathically control Syncline soldiers. She will pacify her kin on the surface while we make our landings,” Margret Singh explained as she stepped back into frame and beside what had been the unquestioned enemy. Captain York hardly acknowledged her words.

  “When will your operation begin?” he finally cut in.

  “When you’re confident all your people can be evacuated within a few hours. We’ll allow you as much time as you need to prepare, but we are on the clock once we begin this operation.”

  “The Syncline will know when we interfere, and it won’t take long for thousands of ships to arrive in orbit,” Quintek added with an urgent snap of his beak. Captain York’s hard gaze lingered on Agra and Quintek for a moment as he considered his other options. He begrudgingly made up his mind with a sigh.

  “We’ll be ready in 24 hours,” he said with a wave of his hand. Margret Singh promised updates then terminated the transmission on her end. Silence dominated the command center as the hologram evaporated away.

  “SMCAF is working with the Syncline,” someone exclaimed with a scathing tone of disbelief. Those who agreed felt the same sense of betrayal.

  “Who cares if it takes the Syn to get us out of here?” Lieutenant McKendrick argued.

  “There will be no debate!” Captain York interjected as he took charge of the room. “We are not going to suffer another day here. Begin the preparations for the evacuation. Wake everybody and give them the news. I want the sick and injured prioritized and ready to move. Find an explosives team to clear the entrance of rubble. Notify me if we receive any more word from the fleet.”

  Agra felt the exhilarating rush of the wind as her shuttle fell through the gray overcast sky of another world. This was the moment she had been waiting for her whole life. Agra hung partially out the open cabin door with a big beaky smile as the airfoils mounted above her began to rotate back into their horizontal configuration. The shuttles around them formed up into formations of six flying low over the brown jagged peaks of Meridian Prime. A soldier unbuckled himself from his seat and shuffled over to Agra and Quintek.

  “Up ahead is the mine,” he said yelling over the sound of the shrieking wind. “We’ll circle until you give us the confirmation that it’s safe to make our landings.”

  Agra nodded enthusiastically with a thumbs-up.

  The disconcerted soldier, obviously uncomfortable with the Syn in his midst shook his helmeted head and made his way up to cockpit with an uneasy look on his face. Hardly anyone Agra spoke too thus far seemed to have any faith in her or the mission. The other soldiers considered her with weary skepticism or outright hostility and most avoided her gaze all together.

  “There they are,” Quintek pointed. Up ahead the mountain sides were stained orange by rust and stripped down to unnatural flat terraces. Agra’s shuttle broke away from the others as it descended down a valley full of gigantic decaying machinery swarming with Syncline soldiers. Thousands hissed and clawed blindly at the earth with a compulsive urge planted in their minds by whatever Queen had brought them there. Driven mad by hunger and exhaustion they clawed at the blue mud while the sick and weak were torn apart to sustain their mindless mission. Some acknowledged the circling shuttle with angry outstretched claws as Agra struggled to do what she had promised.

  “Do you have to bite me again?”Quintek jokingly suggested.

  “I’d rather not,” Agra glowered. She reached out to the Syncline below her and repeated the same order in her mind over and over to no avail. No matter what she did she couldn’t use the Queens power like she had before on Altaire IV.

  “When are you going to accept that it isn’t their power? It’s always been yours to use,” Quintek urged with a provocative hiss. “Remember what it felt like to oppose them. Remember what if felt like to confront them as their equal.”

  His words pushed her through the veil. Agra closed her eyes and concentrated on the space she sensed beyond her waking mind. She called out to infinity and let the stars embrace her. The light in her eyes faded as she began to fall. Quintek acted quickly, rushing to catch her as she went limp. He could sense that her mind was elsewhere. Concerned aircrew rushed to their side

  “She’s done it,” Quintek hollered over the sound of the rushing wind as Agra twitched in his arms. The shuttle buffeted as the pilots extended the breaking flaps and began their last apprehensive approach.

  “Look they’re making space,” one of the pilots exclaimed over the radio. Down below the seething wave of Syn bodies had parted to create an oval patch of trampled earth. The first wave of hovering shuttles slowly settled into a defensive circle. Door gunners swung their heavy suspended weapons towards the submissive enemy but did not open fire. The Syn soldiers stood by obediently, watching from afar with a dazed look in their blood red eyes. Black feathers disturbed by the gust of jet exhaust fluttered on their rigid bodies. The first group of soldiers disembarked with their rifles still slung over their soldiers. Their orders were to ignore the Syncline for now and focus on the evacuation.

  “Give them the signal!”

  A column of dirt and rock erupted from the ground as an underground explosion rippled through the earth. Chips of pulverized rock fell from the expanding plume of dust as Agra began to stir. The operation had begun. More Shuttles began to land all around them. Her eyes snapped open wider than usual.

  “What is it?” Quintek asked as she shot up with a nervous disposition.

  “I spoke to her, the one who sent the Navigator. My grandmother knows where I am and soon her sisters will too.”

  “You did what?”

  “Not now. Did it work? We don’t have much time.”

  “It worked,” Quintek reassured her as they both spotted a line of figures emerging from the choking red cloud. Soldiers raced to help the first groups of men emerging from the gaping hole in the ground as Agra stumbled to her feet. She slipped out of the shuttle and pressed her three toed feet into the muddy earth of another world. She paused to appreciate this moment with silent glee. Quintek disembarked with her crown in his hands.

  “Here,” he offered. She adjusted it on her head as the first stage of the rescue progressed with urgent rapidity. “What do you mean you spoke to her?”

  “I said that’s not important right now.”

  “Agra!” Quintek pressed. She ignored him more preoccupied with the activity around them.

  A group of mud splattered medics were already rushing their patients into the first welcoming wave of shuttles. They filled quickly, jumping aloft in a blast of wind to make room for the second wave circling above. The able bodied were being organized into long lines of dirty fidgeting people. Many looked skyward at the patient flocks of shuttles overhead while the others nervously watched the swarm of Syn surrounding them. The Syn soldiers obediently kept their distance, standing idly by as the humans went about their business. They stared blankly at the rifles leveled at them.

  “Captain York would like a word with you,” The soldier from before informed Agra and Quintek. He escorted them past a mob of gasping whispering voices to a group of men gathered around a half assembled mobile command tent. The frantic activity swirling around the banks of portable communication equipment ceased the moment they laid eyes on Agra. One of the men, a thin elderly man in a faded thread bare SMCAF uniform squinted at Agra with a defeated frown.

  “We’ve well and truly lost,” he said as Agra lorded over him and his men, sunlight glinting off her golden crown. He turned to confront his officer’s confused stares.

  “What do you mean?” Lieutenant Able McKendrick wondered with concern.

  “I’m old enough to remember the enviable days of the Colonial wars. I was there when the Czarists capitulated on Fortis. I escorted defeated young men off that hellish rock who asked for nothing but a little food and a warm place to sleep. They had already accepted death and our mercy only reinforced the fact that their fate was in our hands. I realized then what absolute victory meant and for us that moment of clarity has come and gone. I’m grateful for your help Agra, but you must realize what you’ve done. By saving us you have shown us in no uncertain terms that you are the master of our fate and that your kind has achieved absolute victory. This is the moment Humanity lost this war.”

  Agra desperately wanted to say something, but ultimately decided against it. Anything she said now would just prove his point.