Chapter 17

Raylon

“Battle Command”

“King’s palace”

“Five Kingdoms”

I stared at the tiny speck on the screen, my mind racing.

This little ship drove me crazy for months after it disappeared from the sun, and now it was at the border, requesting permission to resupply at the market.

The same three life signs were inside, and the same questions flooded my mind. Why were they here? What were they up to, and what was that other life sign on board?

There was only one way I could get the answers I wanted, and it was not by shooting them out of the sky.

“Permission granted. Allow them to pass. Follow them and make sure the Fuls do not leave the ship until I have a chance to board it,” I commanded.

Our ships moved out of the way, and the little speck flew past them, into the kingdom.

They’d requested to resupply at the market, so that was my destination. I gathered four men, and we made our way to the shuttle.

My brother would not be happy with this decision, so I needed to ask my questions quickly.

The shuttle docked at the overcrowded and dirty docking station, by the Sakala market.

Normally the royals used a private landing bay, but as I wanted to see this Ful ship, we had to land as close as we could.

Thousands of people of all types walked in every direction, and the stench of street food, sweat, and filth filled my nose as I stepped off the shuttle.

It only took a moment for my mask to filter it.

The long hall of the arrivals passage was crowded and difficult to walk through. My guards tried to clear a path for me, but I was bumped and knocked every few steps.

We finally reached the dock of the Ful ship, and I shook my head at what hard work this was turning out to be.

What should have been a short walk took us almost an hour, as we navigated through the crowd, vendors selling curiosities in makeshift stalls, and beggars sitting in the path.

I commanded the men to open the door to the Ful ship and stepped inside. My men moved around me, and we headed for the bridge.

Two tall beings stood by the window, waiting for us, with their arms in the air. “Is there a problem, Lord Raylon?” one asked.

I looked around the room, and down the long passage that led to the rest of their ship. “Why are you here?” I asked.

“Our request is to resupply our ship.”

“Where is your experiment?” I asked, walking around a third, empty control panel.

“It is not here anymore,” the other one said.

~Dead already. Poor thing. I wonder what the creature must have endured at the hands of these two.~

“Why did you stop to witness the sun exploding, over a year ago?” I decided to start with the questions that bugged me the most.

“Our test subject wished to see it.”

This caught me off-guard. The Fuls’ scholars did not take orders from their test subjects.

They cut them open, experimented on them, killed them, and performed unspeakable cruelties to them. They did not submit to their requests.

“What kind of being were you studying?”

“A human. From a planet very far away.”

“What kinds of tests did you do?” I asked, walking around the two tall, glowing beings.

“An experiment in the human emotional state. To study the complexities of their nature.”

~So, this wasn’t a creature, it was a conscious, self-aware, and advanced being.~

“What did you do with it, once your experiment was over?”

“Our experiment is not yet over,” they said.

“Then where is this…human?”

“In the market. We were not permitted to leave our ship, but your men did not stop Connie.”

~Great, they let it out. Now we had an unknown, unregistered being wandering through the market. Who knows how dangerous it is, or what damage it will do to the town?~

“Remove your masks. I want to see your faces!” I said, anger rising in me. I suspected there was something off with this ship, and now I know what it is.

“If we do that, we will…”

“Remove them!” I shouted. The Fuls looked at each other and slid their fingers along the edges of their masks, pulling them off. I looked into their pitch-black eyes.

They started gasping and clenched their chests. One fell to its knees, and the other dropped its mask and fell to the ground.

“What is this?” I shouted.

I was not happy with the things these creatures do, or that they were in my kingdom, but I didn’t want them to die. The last thing I needed was the peace to be broken.