I was still flummoxed as I followed Aria into the corridor, Lum sitting on top of my head.
The Galacta rings, allegedly the strongest magical shackles ever created, sat snug in my backpack.
Breaking the unbreakable… what exactly did we do?
"Good thing my remote return unit still had some charge," Tarvalen said, "or that would have been a long commute. The nearest stellar current is six days away at top speed, you know. And, ugh, I would've had to rent a spaceship too."
"I told you, I knew a guy! We would've been fine," Qelimara called from inside the Shell.
"I always prepare for the worst," he replied. "Oh. There you guys are. I better not see another stunt like that again, young lady."
I failed to hold back a laugh. "I can't take you seriously after all," I grinned. "Young lady? What are you, forty?"
"W-what? I don't keep track of my… year-numbers."
"Year-numbers!" My stress promptly melted away. "You're right, Aria, this guy is hilarious."
"Huh? You were gossiping about me?" Tarvalen pointed at Aria.
"Nothing sensitive," she calmly replied. "How did it go on Konjico?"
"They changed up the terms on me," Tarvalen said, handing her a transcript. "Can you figure this out for me? Qelimara said I should sue, but I need something solid to pin on them."
"What, did you sign before reading everything?" I looked over Aria's shoulder.
"W-well, there was a lot to read and not enough time," Tarvalen said.
"Gullible man," I chided. "I doubt you'll be able to build a case like this."
"Whatever! I don't like terminating my contracts anyway. I'll figure something out," he declared.
"Something that doesn't involve hurting Lum?" I glared at him.
"I dunno. We'll see," he shrugged.
Boom. Boom. Boom!
"What the hey?" Tarvalen glanced down the hall.
Boom! BOOM!!
Qelimara poked her head out. "What's with the noise?"
"Uhh… everyone, get in the Shell," Tarvalen told us. "You too, Aria."
Straw ball," Lum said as we headed to the hangar.
"Huh?" I looked back down the corridor just as the source of the BOOMing came into view.
The perpetrator was… a snowman? Just straight up a snowman. With the bits of rock and the carrot nose and everything.
The stately-looking helmet and combat vest seemed to indicate he was part of some kind of militia. And the tube-shaped weapon on his shoulder… was that a bazooka??
BOOM!! He launched a fireball out of it, blowing down another door. Then he continued tromping down the corridor towards us, trailing icy mist.
Once my brain finally processed this new sight, the snowman had stopped in front of the ship, his bazooka's barrel still smoking.
The snowman gave Lum and I a careful once-over. "You, demiqon," he said in a gruff voice, "are in grave danger."
"Did you have to blow up my place to make that point?" Tarvalen angrily called.
"A massive surge of cosmic energy was detected from this location, bigger than anything a sky tower could normally produce," the snowman said. "I had to make sure no one else had traced the source."
Then he gestured at Lum and me. "I take it that smallish creature was the epicentre? You should know variants are highly dangerous entities."
"The variant did something?! Aria, what happened?" Tarvalen demanded.
"I'll explain later," Aria replied. I could still feel her energy, but it seemed to have calmed down. Like a hearth instead of a wildfire.
"Hmm." The snowman tapped his helmet. "I just received word that the variant is a high-priority target. Probably a good thing I was in the area, eh?"
"No way, not you too," I groaned.
"Relax, lass. I'm General Moroz of the Lightspeed Corps." He leaned on his bazooka like a cane, now relaxed. "My fleet's just outside the tower, the finest fliers in the sector. I assure you no one will hurt you."
"What about Lum?"
"Who?"
"My baby dolly." I took Lum into my arms. "I owe my life to the one who gave her to me, so you better promise not to hurt her!"
"Hey hey, whoa, please don't hold it like that," Moroz nervously said, raising a hand. "I don't think you realize exactly how dangerous your baby dolly really is."
"Promise me!"
"I'm sorry, lass, I can't do that." he rose his bazooka again, pointing it directly at me. "And if you won't give it up willingly… you leave me precious little choice."
"Hey wait, don't shoot," Qelimara protested. She, Aria and Tarvalen were already in the Shell. "Surely we can work out some non-violent solution!"
"Relax, I'm not gonna kill her. And it'll be better for the lass if they parted ways now, in any case."
Can I dodge it? Who am I kidding, I'm no athlete, I can't even dodge a—
BLAM!
Time seemed to slow down as a grey orb streaked towards me. I defensively raised my arms, and the projectile bounced off of me, sending Lum and I flying backwards.
SPLOOT– As I landed in the Shell, the shot burst into a mess of sticky gunk on the wall near Moroz.
"Wait! You're making a mistake," I heard him call as the ship's hatch closed. A second later,
*
we had warped somewhere else, far away from the clutches of the Lightspeed Corps.
"How the hells? We didn't input any location," Tarvalen said.
"Nice homespice," Lum said.
"What the…? When did your variant start talking?" Qelimara glanced at me.
"Oh yeah, she's been doing it for a while now," I replied. "I'm surprised you just noticed."
"Okay, listen." Qelimara leaned forward, her eye-line glinting. "Simply put, General Moroz was not wrong about that variant. The more it grows, the more dangerous it'll become. We don't really know the specific details, but some variants absorb energy from other living things to fuel their growth. Thus, they need to be quarantined as soon as possible."
"But you said I was absorbing Lum's energy too, didn't you?" I pointed out. "That, um, symbiosis."
"See, Moroz doesn't know about that," she replied. "If things didn't get out of hand so fast, I could've explained things to him, talked him down."
"Does that mean it's not draining our life force?" Tarvalen asked.
"I can confirm," Aria nodded. "It seems this is not a typical variant."
"The Lightspeed guys will never admit it, but none of the recorded variants are typical," Qelimara scoffed. "Variant is defined as an aberrant entity of unknown origin, meaning–"
"They only give that title to a complete mystery, of course!" Aria clapped her hands together. "Whoever's after your baby dolly is just as in the dark about her as we are!"
"Haha! So Moroz was just bullshitting," I laughed.
"Well, his words weren't completely unfounded, to be clear," Tarvalen stated. "And also, I believe it's healthy to be wary of the unknown."
"Of course you'd think that." I rolled my eyes, then pushed open the hatch. Immediately a wave of incredibly cold air blasted me in the face.
"Uh…" I stared at the blue-white wildscape before us, covered in ice and rime but somehow still teeming with hidden life.
"Yeah, I think I'll stay inside," Qelimara said.