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  Sa’lok

  Conquered World: Book Eighteen

  Elin Wyn

  Contents

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa’lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Sa'lok

  Teisha

  Letter from Elin

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  Given: Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Teisha

  “Pull it toward you,” I said, raising my voice so that I could be heard over the growl of the hovercraft’s twin engines.

  Sitting between my legs, Lyrie shifted her weight nervously and reached toward the yoke with her tiny hands.

  I laid my hands on top of hers and, being as gentle as I could, I pulled the yoke toward us. The hovercraft’s nose pointed up almost immediately, and the engines pushed us away from the ground and toward the bright blue skies overhead.

  “Higher, higher,” Lyle squealed from behind me, and I let a smile spread across my lips as I obliged.

  Tilting the yoke toward me, I used my free hand to flick a couple of switches on the panel and redirected some extra power to the engines.

  Their growl turned into a furious roar, the hovercraft’s fuselage rattling and shaking, but neither of the kids showed any fear. If anything, it was the opposite.

  The twins were just seven, but they were already as passionate about flying as I was.

  Syra, their mother, wasn’t exactly happy about it—no mother really enjoys having their children too far away, especially if too far away means being in a metal box hundreds of feet up in the air—but she trusted me with the kids, all the same.

  And she was right to do so.

  As their aunt, I would never do anything that would really put them in harm’s way. I loved them more than I did myself.

  But that was life on Ankau.

  Risk and reward. They’d have to learn a little bit of the danger soon enough.

  “It’s all you now,” I said as I pushed on the yoke and stabilized the hovercraft. Slowly, I removed my hands from Lyrie’s and let her have the controls.

  She nodded quietly, an expression of absolute focus washing over her face, and she held the yoke tightly as the hovercraft zoomed through the vastness of the blue sky.

  “Bring us back around,” I continued. “Tilt it a bit left.”

  Doing as she was told, Lyrie banked the ship left and settled in a circular trajectory over the woods. Once she straightened the ship, I looked back over my shoulder to ensure Lyle was enjoying himself.

  I didn’t need to worry.

  He had both his hands on the cockpit window, forehead pressed tight against it, and he was looking at the sights with pure fascination.

  “Say hi to your mother,” I laughed, pointing down at the small outpost right underneath us.

  A tall wooden palisade encircled a group of squat buildings, one main road cutting through the outpost from one end to the other. It couldn’t even be called a village, but it was home, all the same.

  “Where?”

  “There,” I replied, pointing at the tiny figure standing in front of one of the houses.

  It was hard to make out who that figure was from a distance, but I had absolutely no doubt it was Syra. Judging by the time, she was probably hanging the laundry to dry on the clothesline I had set up outside our house.

  “Hi, mommy,” the twins cried out at the same time, and I had to grab the yoke as Lyrie let go of it to wave at her mother.

  Smiling, I reached for the panel and turned one of the engines off, allowing the air resistance to slow the hovercraft down.

  Giving a quick glance at all the numbers and metrics on the dashboard—I’ve always relied more on instinct than on my technical expertise—I started to make a controlled descent, the belly of the hovercraft almost grazing the outpost’s wooden palisade as I made a beeline toward our house.

  “Already?” Lyle asked, his words thick with disappointment.

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “You have to do your homework, remember? Your mother will kill me if I keep you away from the books for too long. We’ll fly some more tomorrow, alright?”

  Carefully, I lowered the hovercraft onto the extension of overgrown grass that separated the house from the shed where I kept the hovercraft whenever I was away.

  The clothes hanging outside swayed aggressively as I landed but, thankfully, they held onto the line.

  I really, really didn’t want to have to redo the washing, and that’d be my fate if the gusts from the hovercraft knocked them down.

  “Off you go, kids.”

  “Homework! Right now,” Syra cried out from the doorway, as if to punctuate what I had just said. She wore an apron over a pair of blue jeans and a faded black t-shirt, but her youthful appearance was betrayed by the stern look on her face.

  Her eyes shone in the same way our mother’s eyes had whenever she wanted to make it clear we were to obey immediately.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the memory, despite the twinge of sadness.

  The twins jumped out from the hovercraft once I opened the doors, and they marched dutifully inside the house, barely sparing their mother a glance as they went.

  I was checking the hovercraft’s panel when I noticed Syra was walking toward me.

  Placing both her hands on the ship’s nose, she gave me a thin-lipped smile, her brown eyes shooting daggers at me through a few locks of her blonde hair.

  “I thought we had talked about it,” she finally said with a sigh.

  “Talked about what?”

  “The kids,” she replied. “Homework before playing. You know.”

  “C’mon,” I laughed, poking my head out the window just so I could look at her. “Remember when we were kids? Did we ever follow any rule like that?”

  “Yeah, well, just wait until you’re a mother. That devil-may-care attitude will bite you in the ass.”

  “Look at you, acting like such a grownup,” I teased her.

  Popping the pilot’s door open, I climbed down from the hovercraft and made my way toward her.

  She was still looking at me with a stern expression, but she mellowed out once I kissed her forehead.

  Even though she was two years younger than me, Syra had always been the responsible one, and she hated whenever I treated her as if she was the older of the two of us.

  It didn’t help that I looked younger than I really was.

  “I’m serious, Teisha,” she sighed. “Life’s tough as it is. I just want them to have a shot at a good life.”

  “I know you do.” Laying one hand on her shoulder, I gave it a gentle squeeze and smiled. “And they’ll turn out just fine. Those two are some of the brightest kids I’ve ever come across. And they’re brave, too.”

  “Thank you,” she merely said, and this time it was her turn to kiss my forehead. Without saying another word more, she turned on her heels and walked back inside the house.

  I stood there, leaning against the hovercraft, and watched her go as the sun started its descent past the horizon line, a bright shade of orange spilling across the sky.

  Syra was right—after the war, life had become tough. She had lost her husband during the fight against the Xathi
, and was left to raise the two children by herself.

  Always keeping her chin up, she fought tooth and nail for the twins to have a happy life.

  Even though I didn’t worry as much as she did, I could see where she was coming from. I just hoped I was helping more than I stressed her out.

  After her husband died, I moved in with her so I could help, but I wasn’t really sure about how successful I had been.

  There were times when I wasn’t around much, always flying on behalf of the Allied League and General Rouhr, and that meant the burden of raising the twins fell on her shoulders alone.

  Sure, the money helped, but it only went so far. I was part of a human pilot auxiliary program, and that meant I was on auxiliary wages.

  Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be better for me to be around the house more often.

  I had a degree in linguistics and anthropology—an interest that had taken a back seat once I got my first taste of the open skies—but even if the pay would have been higher, there weren’t a lot of university jobs open right now.

  Maybe in a few years we’d all be back on our feet, and I could get something that brought in more money, while allowing me to be home every night to help Syra with the kids.

  Someday.

  “Come in, Teisha,” a voice crackled through my comm unit, derailing my train of thought. “Are you there?”

  Recognizing the voice as belonging to my favorite K’ver, I smiled as I picked up the small communication device I had hanging from my belt.

  “I’m here,” I said. “What’s up, Sa'lok?”

  “Are you free?”

  That was Sa'lok.

  He never tiptoed around a subject, and he always cut straight to the chase. Most of the aliens were like that, especially the K’ver, but Sa'lok’s background as an engineer really defined him as a straight shooter.

  A man that was always looking for solutions instead of dwelling on problems.

  I liked that.

  “Yeah, I’m free,” I replied, immediately forgetting all about my plans of having an office job in the city. “Do you need a pilot?”

  “I do. I need someone to fly me to Glymna.”

  “What’s there?” I asked him. Glymna wasn’t exactly a hub of activity for the general’s men, at least the last time I checked.

  A small city carved into the earth; it was more like a relic of the first colonists’ attempts at urbanization than a proper modern city.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going on vacation,” I teased. “There are much better places to visit, you know?”

  “And how would you know that?” he threw right back at me, his tone one of amusement. “I don’t remember you ever taking a day off.”

  Then, before I could say something, he continued, more serious now. “There’s been a development involving the Gorgos, and I’ve been asked to consult. The Puppet Master is helping, as well, and Glymna’s one of the easiest points of access for him.”

  “Sounds good to me. Where are you?”

  “Nyheim,” he replied. “Can you pick me up in an hour?”

  Smiling, I looked at my hovercraft.

  It wasn’t exactly a pretty model—its maker had filed for bankruptcy even before the war, and its outdated lines were too angular and stern—but I knew every single component hiding under the fuselage.

  I had restored and retooled the entire thing myself, after all.

  “An hour?” I laughed. “Please, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  “Won’t you need to pack a bag?”

  “Nope.” I always kept a go-bag in the cargo hold, one with everything I needed for at least a week, and that meant I was always ready to go in a minute’s notice.

  Unlike those pilots that liked taking their time with preparations, I preferred to be ready all the time.

  “Then see you soon, Teisha.”

  Sa'lok

  “Stand clear!”

  Folding my arms over my chest, I did as I was told and took a couple of steps back as the flight marshal, a spindly human guy in an orange vest, waved his two light sticks and directed Teisha’s hovercraft toward the landing pad.

  Even though the bright hangar lights bounced off her windshield, I could still see her leaning over the ship’s controls, her petite figure and honey-blonde hair enough to make me smile.

  “You’re late,” I told her the moment she climbed down from the hovercraft, her hair cascading down her shoulders in soft waves.

  Quickly, she closed the distance between us and punched my arm playfully.

  “The kids didn’t want me to come,” she shot back as an explanation. “But I’m not late. It took me twenty-five minutes to get here. You’re the one who arrived early. Seems like someone missed me, huh?”

  “Why would I be missing you?” I laughed, cocking one eyebrow up as I grinned. “If I wanted to have someone around to bust my balls all the time, I would have already told the general I want to work with Vrehx.”

  She pursed her lips and gave me an annoyed look, one that just made me laugh even more. “Come here, you,” I told her as I took one step forward and wrapped my arms around her. She happily did the same, resting her head against my chest. “How are the kids?”

  “They’re growing up fast,” she whispered. Against my K’ver frame, she seemed even smaller in comparison, fragile, even. “You should come meet them.”

  “I’ll see if I can ask for a day off once I’m done with Glymna. Your sister, how is she doing?”

  “She’s fine,” she replied, but I could tell by her tone of voice that she wasn’t telling me the whole truth.

  Not that I was surprised. Syra was still mourning her husband while raising the twins. Never an easy situation to be in.

  “Now, what’s up with this Glymna business?”

  “You heard about the new site one of our archeologists uncovered?”

  “I heard a thing or two,” she admitted with a small shrug. “But I don’t know much about it.”

  “And you’ve heard about the new possessions, haven’t you?”

  “The Gorgoxians, right? Everyone’s talking about them.”

  “Yes, the Gorgos,” I nodded, using the shorthand name the teams had been using for the possessed, or the non-corporeal entities who had possessed the poor human hosts. Once the infection had taken place, there really didn’t seem to be much difference.

  “Apparently some of them were trying to dig a hole right in the middle of the Sika Jungle. It turns out, there was an underground structure there, some sort of holding structure built by an ancient race called the Aeryx. They used it to house those who had been infected by the Gorgoxians.”

  “So, a prison?”

  “Not exactly,” I continued. “More like a hospital. I know the general called for a big meeting a couple of days ago, and they figured out that the Aeryx had discovered a way to get rid of the Gorgos. A cure, if you will. Thing is, everything we’ve managed to get from the structure is in a language we don’t recognize. Our Urai friends say that it can be translated, but—”

  “You need linguists.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, did you call me here as a pilot or as a linguist?”

  “Well, I do need to get to Glymna,” I smiled. “But you’re proficient with languages, and that might come in handy. We’ll see how things go. A lab has been set up in Glymna, the best site for the job and the Puppet Master, and we’ll be working out of there on a solution.”

  “Alright, this is an interesting job, I’ll give you that much,” she said, returning my smile as she tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear.

  “But why are you consulting with the guys there? You’re not exactly an expert on ancient civilizations or dead languages. Why do they need a chemical engineer, and one that’s an expert in biological weapons, to boot?”

  Rek. I’d been dreading that question, but I hadn’t been able to get through to the general’s office yet.

  I should have s
tarted the process before contacting her. No one should ever fly that fast, especially not a fragile human.

  “I can’t answer that right now.”

  I knew that my answer would infuriate her—more than anyone I knew, Teisha hated unanswered questions—but this time I wasn’t teasing her or fooling around.

  What I had to do in Glymna was classified, general’s orders.

  I was pretty sure I’d be able to get Teisha the needed clearance, but I still needed the general’s authorization for it, and for that, I needed my request to get through. “You’re going to have to wait.”

  Her eyes narrowed, then she shrugged.

  “In that case, let’s get going.”

  She might be annoyed, but she’d deal with it. Teisha knew how the military worked as well as any soldier.

  Grabbing my bag from the ground, she pressed it against my chest and quickly spun around. I watched her climb into the hovercraft, her movements liquid and smooth, and found myself shaking my head.

  Why was she always in such a hurry?

  “C’mon, what are you waiting for? You keep standing around like that, and we’re gonna die of old age before reaching Glymna.”

  Once inside Teisha’s ship, I waited until the doors were closed to fasten my seatbelt, then fired up my own panel and helped her check if we were ready for takeoff.

  Five minutes later, we were leaving Nyheim behind, the brightly lit streets of the city like a sprawling cobweb underneath us. Ahead of us there was nothing but darkness and the clear sky, thousands of shining stars strewn across the nightly canvas.

  Sitting behind Teisha, and fully knowing that she couldn’t see what I was doing on my screen, I quickly fired off a message to the general and asked for Teisha to be granted the necessary clearance for a prolonged stay in Glymna.