“How are you holding up, Leonard?”
“Terribly. Is this what being a hero is all about?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then you can have all the glory from now on.”
A loud Bhlat voice carried over to us from around the edge of a high-rise building, and we stopped. I motioned for Leonard to go flat against the wall. I wanted to grab my rifle, but that would expose me, so I stayed still.
“The Tarna will not be seeing petitioners today. Go back home,” the voice called. The word Tarna didn’t translate, and I understood that to be the name or title of someone.
Taking a peek around the corner, I saw a line of people that went on for as far as I could see, toward a section of the city to the east.
“I’ve read enough medieval books to know that the peasants petition the king at the palace. Follow that line, and we find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” Leonard said, nervously laughing.
He was probably right. A group of petitioners turned and walked past us, their heads down low. “We need water. How are we going to grow the crops? Theos bless us,” a Bhlat woman said through long sharp teeth.
“Shhhh. Don’t say that name,” her friend hissed back. “Sometimes I wonder why I spend time with you. Shouting out blasphemy on the streets.”
They kept moving, and my heart rate returned to only slightly escalated instead of full-on panic. The woman had mentioned the Theos. The old gods’ name still escaped the lips of our enemy. That was interesting, yet they didn’t know about the portals, which made it even more of a mystery. Maybe there was a card I could add to this last hand I was playing.
Motioning for Leonard to follow, I turned around, heading toward the block parallel to the line of people. We’d follow the line, but from a distance. From here, I spotted what could only be the palace. It was a huge building, walls standing as tall as the skyscrapers near it. It looked a meld of glass, stone, and metal from our vantage point: as futuristic and imposing as I could have imagined.
The closer we got to our destination, the slower the travel. More and more bodies cluttered the alleys now, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay hidden. Leonard’s deep breathing was crossing through my earpiece, and I had to tell him to calm down a few times. He didn’t reply to my prodding.
A city block away from the immense towers ahead, I had to make a decision. If we kept creeping around cloaked, we were bound to be caught, and we were running out of time.
“Leonard,” I said when we were out of earshot of any Bhlat on the streets, “change of plans.” I told him to follow me, and we ducked and turned away from the wide entrance to the palace. Huge stone steps rose to a large open doorway, where armored guards kept a watchful eye on anyone coming or going. This wasn’t going to work.
Around the corner, we found what I assumed would be there: a servants’ entrance. A couple of Bhlat men were hanging outside, smoking a potent herb from something resembling a pipe. They were in the same white robes, but these were hooded. The men were taller than us by a good foot; smoke blew out one man’s three nostrils.
As they entered the door, I gripped it just before it closed and followed them into the room. Boots and uniforms lined the walls, and before the two of them knew it, I decloaked, holding my pulse rifle up toward them.
“Don’t shoot,” the first one said, his words translating through my earpiece.
“Listen to me.” I paused while the translator spat out the appropriate Bhlat words. “Do as I say, and you can go home to your families tonight.”
This got the two wide gray faces to nod along. I got a good look at a Bhlat for the first time. These two had the same swirling movement in their eyes as the others I’d encountered, and mucus flew from one of the left alien’s nostrils. As much as I was taught that something with teeth that sharp must be a monster, these two seemed like normal people, no different from anyone on the street back home.
“Good. Now tell me who’s in charge, and where I can find them.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Leonard asked me from beneath his cowl. He looked like an overweight ghost in the get-up, and I doubted my plan.
“No. I’m liking the odds less and less.” I pushed the cart down the hall toward the Empress’ offices. The Bhlat had told us they were scheduled to do maintenance on her floor atop the towers that morning. After grilling them for an hour, we donned their clothing and made our move.
The cart held our supplies inside, and I had a pulse pistol tucked away under my too-large Bhlat uniform. I was swimming in it, worried each step would cause me to trip over it and make myself known.
The handheld Kalentrek was in my palm. The only solace of that was in knowing I could activate it and kill any Bhlat in the area. That might save my and Leonard’s skin, but it wasn’t going to help our case back at Earth.
We used a key fob on the elevator, the door opening. We entered and pressed the icon the Bhlat had advised, but instead of a lift, an energy surge raced through my body. The next thing I knew, we were on the top floor.
“Freaky,” Leonard said.
I checked my pocket for the Relocator and reminded Leonard to stay close. If we needed to bolt for the portal, I had to be touching him when I activated the device.
Before we left the room, I passed the Kalentrek to Leonard. “Don’t touch it,” I warned him. I climbed on the cart, hoping no one would enter the transporter elevator, and lifted a ceiling grate. “Pass it up,” I said, taking the small device and setting it there. With my tablet, I took an image of it there, turned on so the lights on it glowed softly.
“What’s that for?” Leonard asked as I took the device back and replaced the grate.
“Backup plan.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The doors opened, and we entered the beehive. Armed Bhlat strode down the halls, half as wide as they were tall in their armor. We kept our eyes down, our uniforms and servant cowls covering our far-too-obvious human faces.
I didn’t know much about their leader, but they said she ran all things under the ever-expanding Bhlat colonies. I’d asked what kind of woman she was, and their eyes had gotten wide. They clearly feared her.
The room was open, with three halls heading in different directions from the floor’s foyer. The guards seemed uninterested in us, and I doubted they’d ever been infiltrated before.
“Left,” I whispered, and pushed the cart down the left hall, with Leonard following close behind.
A tall, slim female walked past us, her clothing colorful and rich: a stark contrast to the clothing we’d seen the regular ground-dwellers wearing. I heard her footsteps slow as we walked the opposite direction, and I could feel her eyes on my back as we kept going. Sweat dripped down my torso as my fears escalated and threatened to take over. I thought of Mary on their ship above Earth, and all of my friends in danger there. It was enough to keep my feet moving. The female’s footsteps started up again, getting quieter the farther apart we got.
With a quick glance, I looked up and spotted two hefty guards at the end of the hall. They looked much like the warriors we’d faced on the Deltra space station, and I wasn’t looking forward to fighting them again. But I didn’t have a choice.
“Stay behind me,” I said to Leonard, who happily slowed his pace.
The guards said something to me, but without my translator on, I couldn’t make out the words. I nodded, my face still covered, and when I was ten feet in front of them, I reached under the cart I was pushing, my hand coming to rest on the butt of the pulse rifle.