Callum had found a selachii. A carcha weapon. A gigantic metal humanoid war machine. Humans called them mechs. According to the old timers, they had been the major reason Earth hadn't even put up a respectable fight against the carcha invasion. Callum had seen them before. There were a few stationed at the carcha base near the atmosphere tower. Sometimes he'd seen one fly over the village. But why would one be here? It seemed slightly different. For one, it was red, not white like others he'd seen. The head also had two curved horns sprouting from its forehead. 'This cave is a lot bigger than I thought it was.' Even though the mech was kneeling, it still towered over him. 'If there was a cave this big, there is no way it would have escaped our notice unless it was inaccessible from the outside. But if that's so, how the hell did this get here?'
"Callum!" Riley's voice was very distant. Callum couldn't even make out what he said after but the point was made. He needed to get back. 'I need to tell him what I found anyway. This is crazy!' He sprinted back to the hole but before he could catch his breath, Riley waved at him impatiently. "Come on! Everybody else is already gone."
'How long was I checking that mech out?!' Callum wiggled through the hole, breathlessly saying, "You won't believe what I found!"
"Later, man. We need to hurry." Riley hustled away and Callum followed. They found Valencia waiting for them at the equipment drop-off, arms crossed.
"What have you idiots been doing?"
Riley jerked a thumb at Callum. "This guy found a tunnel he just had to explore right away."
The look of irritation on Valencia's face morphed into curiosity. "A tunnel?"
Callum's face lit up but Riley shot him down instantly. "Later, you guys." He shucked his helmet, axe and boots. "I want to see the new Odontas."
Callum nodded, a bit glumly. He supposed the mech would keep. And he also wanted to see the new Odontas. He pitched his equipment into the room and the three of them hurried through the exit of the mines. As soon as they were clear, Callum accelerated into a flat-out sprint. 'What a fun day!' He laughed as he ran, enjoying the wind in his hair and the burn in his legs. With his long legs eating up ground, it didn't take him long to reach the outskirts of the village.
He slowed when he saw who waited for him. 'Nita!' The day just kept getting better! Unlike every other human on the moon, Nita Kay didn't belong to just one village but all of them. She'd been dumped here for some transgression a few years ago and had stood out from the moment she arrived. Nita was bold, blunt and confident in a way he hadn't really encountered before. She had become something like the sheriff of the moon after breaking up more than a few fights. Nobody liked going to the carcha to resolve disputes so Nita had assumed that role. Callum couldn't speak for the other villages but the people of Mikana had a lot of respect for her intelligent and decisive approach.
Of course, her personality wasn't the only reason that Nita stood out. There were all sorts on Ragrun but Nita still seemed exotic. She had dark skin but bright green eyes and deep, scarlet hair that she normally wore pinned up so it seemed to flare out behind her head. Nita wore her robe differently as well. The sleeves were rolled up all the way to the shoulders and she tied it more loosely than even most of the men did, leaving it to gape open tantalizingly. Both choices served to show off the thing that made her most exotic of all. Tattoos.
There was no way to get tattooed on Ragrun so it was extremely rare to find anyone with them. Both of Nita's arms were covered. The left consisted of a lady pirate on the prow of her ship hauling in a harpoon that had pierced a shark. Swirling water covered every inch that wasn't taken up by the pirate ship and shark. The right was covered by a variety of brightly colored flowers and vines. She had a tattoo or tattoos on her chest as well Callum had never been able to tell what they were. Her robe didn't gape upen that much. Nita had piercings as well. Several in either ear and one in her left nostril. That wasn't quite as uncommon as tattoos but was still unusual to see.
"I thought you might not be coming," Nita said with a half-smile. She was leaning up against the wall of a house, seemingly without a care in the world. Callum had seen her spring out of that position faster than could be believed.
"Nita!" he said happily. "I wasn't expecting you to come." No human really liked the carcha but Nita had a special antipathy for them. He was kind of surprised she wanted to see the new Odontas.
She shrugged. "I was in the area."
Callum raised an eyebrow and was about to ask for further information--he loved hearing Nita's stories--but Riley and Valencia caught up to him at that moment. Riley slumped over and braced himself on his knees. Valencia leaned back with her hands on her hips. They were both gasping for air. Callum had already caught his wind. "Damn it, you tall bastard," Riley said between breaths. Callum chuckled but didn't otherwise respond. Nita had pushed herself away from the wall and he caught a glimpse of the tattoo between her breasts. 'What is that? A sword?'
"Put your eyes back in your head," Valencia grumbled.
"Huh?" Callum glanced at her. 'What is she...' A blush washed over his face as he realized. "N-no. That wasn't what I was…" Valencia's steady glare told him that she didn't believe him. Nita barked a laugh. "I wasn't!"
"Come on," Riley said, clapping a hand to his shoulder. "Let's go." The smirk on his face told Callum that even his best friend thought he had been ogling. Callum slumped, realizing there was no point to arguing.
The foursome headed into the village and to the gathering crowd. They found Catriona and joined her. Just about all hundred-plus residents had turned out. Just a few seconds later, they began to hear the odd, keening sound that announced the arrival of the Odontas. Although it reminded Callum of a small creature's dying scream, the noise was apparently considered musical to carcha. A few beats later the Odontas and his retinue arrived.
Out front were four carcha soldiers. Maybe it was speciesist of Callum but he had trouble telling different carcha apart. They had the same basic proportions as humans, with two arms and two legs. Their skin was always the same pallid blue-gray in color and they all had the same oily black hair. Carcha had virtually no nose and rows of small, razor-sharp teeth. The only variety came in their eye color, so far as he could tell. The four soldiers out front were each dressed in a skin-tight white bodysuit that covered them from toes to neck. They were also armed with a stun-staff and a side-arm holstered at their hip. Callum knew they would tolerate little from the human crowd. Not since that one Odontas had been torn apart by a frenzied mob several years ago. The carcha had annihilated the village that did it as an example.
Behind the soldiers was a carcha playing the instrument producing the sound so distressing to human ears. He was dressed more finely, with a shimmering white robe with blue designs. The instrument he was playing was a long, spiraling black cylinder. Just behind the musician was the person they'd all come to see.
He was held aloft on white wood palanquin lacquered in gold paint. The four creatures holding him aloft were a species that Callum had seen only a handful of times. Dobed. They were tall, often about a head taller than carcha or fie and very wide. Their arms were long and thick and their legs somewhat short in comparison. They had wide, pushed-in noses, big flat teeth and strong jaws. Their skin was brown or gray and they had wiry black hair and beards. They all wore tak skirts but were otherwise bare-chested and barefoot. Most of them had bellies that flopped over the waistband of their skirts. Callum didn't know much about them other than they, like humanity, had been absorbed into the carcha's empire and they were often used as labor in the way the current Odontas was using them.
The carcha riding the palanquin was resplendent. Well, his clothing was at least. The man himself was somewhat fat and seemed bored and petulant. He dressed the part, though. His robe was made out of the shimmering, shining, color-shifting material that the richest charcha wore. The robe itself shifted from a brilliant white to yellow and green and back with the swirling designs covering it were blue and then violet and then black. He wore clawed metal boots that were polished to a brilliant gleam and clawed gauntlets that were studded with blue jewels. Callum shook his head. It was an impressive sight. It would have been even more so if the Odontas wasn't slumped in his seat like a sack of millet.
They stopped in the beginning of the crowd, the four guards out front shoving some of the humans back a step. The music came to a crescendo and the dobed lifted the palanquin high. The Odantas stood and the music ceased. Callum joined the others in trying to produce the hissing noise that carcha used to note approval but it was hard to do correctly with human mouths. The Odantas lifted his hands as if accepting the hiss and then lowered them. Callum and the rest stopped. "Villagers," he said, his tone making clear how rehearsed and bored his forthcoming statement would be. "I am here to greet you as the new Odantas of the moon Ragrun. The previous Odontas left me with the impression that you villagers were highly productive and cooperative, feeding the engine of our great empire and being fed in return. So long as you continue to do your part, I shall continue the lavish treatment of the previous Odontas. Let us work together to make these mines as productive as possible so that the glory and benevolence of the Empire can stretch ever further."
He finished speaking and there was a beat while the humans waited to see if that was all. Then they gave a polite hiss. Callum was disappointed. He'd never seen an Odontas very excited about overseeing Ragrun but he'd also never seen one so blatantly annoyed that they even had to recite a thirty-second speech. There would be no negotiating with this one. No matter how reasonable or well-thought-out the change, the new Odontas struck him as someone who would be irritated with the mere notion of listening to a proposal. 'What a let down.' The Odontas slumped back into his seat, his soft green eyes roved over the crowd, not even interested enough to be contemptuous. Then they stopped and widened.
Callums guts turned to ice. His sister, Catriona, was standing right next to him and unless he was mistaken, it was her those eyes had stopped on. The Odontas had his chin resting in the palm of his hand so it was hard to make out his expression exactly but Callum thought he saw a smile. Then the eyes moved on. Callum tried to calm himself down. It could have meant nothing. It might not have even been her the carcha was looking at. But the bad feeling in his stomach didn't go away. The music started up again and the carcha retinue departed without another word.
As soon as they were near the outskirts of the village, the crowd began to break up into small groups talking amongst themselves. "Well, that guy seems like an asshole," Nita grumbled. Callum nodded glumly.
"Well, it's not fair to judge him off of a single speech," Catriona said diplomatically, "though it wasn't a very good one." That, coming from her, was about the same as saying it was god awful. She shook her head, as if to put it behind her. "Would you like to stay with us tonight, Nita?" Nita didn't have a permanent home. Just about anyone was happy to put her up but she usually stayed at Callum's home when she was in Mikana.
"Of course," Nita said with a big grin. "No point in coming to Mikana if I don't get to have some of your cooking." They moved off toward the house together.
Callum made to follow up but Riley grabbed him. "Did you see that?" he whispered.
Callum nodded. It wasn't hard to guess what Riley was talking about. The man was probably more protective of Catriona than Callum himself was. "I did. I might not mean anything, though."
"Maybe," Riley said doubtfully. "But we better be fucking careful."