More and more debris hurtled toward them, hitting the ship and shaking them off balance. Finally, Egar 9 managed to overcome his stunned stupor and rushed to the display table. Immediately, a green mist surrounded the ship, deflecting the fragments that hit it. The shards burned with spectacular flames, leaving trails along the fuselage.
Gill walked to the table display.
“May I?” he asked. Without waiting for Egar’s approval, he took the Sigian bracelet and activated it on his arm, pretending he didn’t see the grimace of protest on his companion’s face.
“We’ll meet again!” hissed Baila, swelled with rage.
“I hope, Your Greatness, I hope to the tip of my tail,” he replied with a satisfied smile.
Baila’s hologram disappeared from the room.
Once the fight was over, the sorry remains of the Rigulian fleet limped toward them as if attracted by a magnetar, smoking and puffing from their joints. They connected to Egar’s ship, whose segments detached to allow the link. At completion, they formed a single ship, much larger than before, riddled with holes and crumpled here and there, but able to fly on its own.
Egar’s sphere flashed to signal they were synchronized, and several holograms materialized in the chamber. Most belonged to Rigulians of wildly different sizes, but two were of a different species that Gill had never seen before—the two annoying Sarkens.
“Sirtam 4,” exclaimed Egar 9 after greeting them according to the protocol, “I bear terrible news! Grammia is the hidden world we all feared!”
“I know,” replied Sirtam.
“You know? What do you mean you know?” exclaimed Egar 9, even more bewildered by Sirtam’s answer than by the Grammians’ sneak attack.
“Two hours ago, Mitowa was bombed by a Grammian fleet that appeared seemingly from nowhere,” he told them. “We’re waiting for their ships to appear on Lacrilia any moment now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fight,” said the Rigulian, grinding his mouth plates together. “We have to protect the serums. Lacrilia is the most important roadworking planet in the sector.”
“All right, but… should we contact Rigulia 9?”
“We’re trying to call them, too,” Sirtam sighed, “although I have no doubt they’ve learned about it—that is, if they’re not already under attack. Who knows how many distortions the Grammians have in the galaxy?”
“Sirtam 4, our mission on Antyra wasn’t a failure,” continued Egar 9. “We found an ally who knows more about Grammia than we do. You better listen to him!” he said, pointing at Gill.
Without further introduction, Gill told them the story of the forgotten Sigian war and his fight with Baila’s army. He spoke without interruption, omitting some “minor” details about Sandara’s nature and especially about the worrisome potential of the kaura dead to expand into gods, to avoid causing them even greater shocks than those they already received.
The only explanation they requested was for Gill to tell in detail how the Sigian bracelet worked. Gill explained as best as he could and made some distortions to jump around, which left their eyes bulging in wonder.
When he finished, no Rigulian dared to disturb the silence, realizing for the first time what a perfidious enemy they were fighting.
Finally, Sirtam cleared his throat and said, “Antyran, you have our gratitude! We’re very lucky to have found you. We’re going to stop the synchronization now, to prepare for battle.”
“What are my orders?” asked Egar 9.
“Come to Lacrilia. If… if you find us alive, help us leave the planet.”
“I got it. Good luck,” the medir said.
The holograms disappeared, leaving them alone.
“You will allow me to get back on my ship, I hope?” asked Gill.
“Of course,” replied Egar 9 with a friendly smile.
Gill felt the warmth of an un-Antyran happiness at the sight of her bright face on the destroyer’s display wall. He wanted so badly to hold her in his arms that he would have gladly died to be able to do it. His constant running from death tired him so much. He knew that his place was with her, on the other side of existence.
“Sandara! You did it, you…” he trailed off, choked with emotion, unable to say another word.
Sandara stopped her wild impulse to jump at his neck and smell his skin, to cuddle on his chest and feel a bit of steadiness in the ocean of uncertainty, remembering at the last moment that she was dead, and he was alive. The boundary of death gaped between them, and she had no way of crossing back for him. She sighed.
She asked him, barely moving her lips, “What happened?”
“A galactic war has started!”
“I thought so,” she whispered, bowing her head.
“You know… the deletion,” Gill babbled, “you have to postpone it. I need you more than ever. We all need you,” he corrected himself, striving to compose a voice as woeful as possible.
“I’m sure you’re terribly sorry about that,” she teased him.
“I can’t hide anything from you!” he exclaimed, bursting into laughter.
“Don’t you ever forget this,” she said, smiling playfully.
Far from Gill’s view, tens of thousands of Sandaras were hiding among the trunks of the tekal forest, tormented by the desire to see him, to speak with him, to hug him… tormented by their decision to remain hidden… tormented that Gill had no clue of their existence, of the whole deluge of clones…
“What did he say? What did he say?” they whispered.
“The galactic war has started,” the murmur of the terrible news slipped from one to another, sneaking like the shadow of a nifle.
“The galactic war has started!”
A word from the author:
Dear reader,
The story you just read is the final step of a long, winding road I started to walk many years ago.
It took me over ten years to reach the point where I was content enough with the novel to have it published. All my life I was a perfectionist and I couldn’t let something out of my hands before I did all I could to make it better. I can only hope I succeeded with my first book.
I hope you had as much joy reading the story as I had writing it. And in case you really liked it and feel like wanting to help, please consider sharing it. You could share the website of the book www.thesigianbracelet.com, review the story or spread the word in any way you may think fit. For me, the most important thing is to reach as many book lovers as possible and I’m counting on readers like you to make this happen. Not only will this allow many book readers to discover it in a way I can’t reach, but it will allow me to follow my dream of becoming a full-time writer.
I didn't contact any publisher to show them the book. Not that I was afraid to knock on their door—but I believe in the opportunities that the Internet has brought to us, in the possibility of being involved in the whole process and keeping my creative freedom, instead of relinquishing them to a company.
That's why I don't have a PR machine to help me get this story out—and that's why your help can make a huge difference. Ultimately, it would mean that the next novel of this series will hit the shelves much faster than this first book—which I hope is something you would like to happen.
Notes
[←1]
The city’s strategist, a position granted for life by Antyra’s Council.
[←2]
The star system had three inhabited worlds, of which Antyra I was the cradle of Antyran civilization, and the other two were recent colonies.
[←3]