FALAHA'S JOURNEY: A Spacegirl's Account in Three Movements

Episode #56

The pain slowly released me to meet Father's warm but troubled gaze and he relaxed only when I finally got through. Yet he wasn't surprised.

It didn't surprise him. Father knew what was going on with me.

He knew this pain.

I wiped the blood off my face as Bradoh touched down in the Boneyard.

"Eyu, just stay put here somewhere in the trash and don't move," Father told him. It appeared he was planning to hide here from the start. So that's why Father washed away Tagai's blood!

Before those would be disposed of by sanitation systems, fresh biomarkers were still in this place: hair, blood, fingerprints, skin cells, everything—all those traces of the living. The remains of Hunter corpses were probably still here too, along with other evidence of our splattering arrival!

Bradoh furled itself into compact 'sleeping' state, the way it was supposed to be kept in its sarx, and shut down the camo, becoming another piece of junk here. Only its DIVE, connected with Eyuran's soma, was kept alive.

Every organic compound on a ship's hull was usually destroyed in the dive, but that wasn't the case with space-adapted Baali. Tagai's blood with its soma needed to be removed while fresh in order for all traces of his presence to completely disappear. But even if Father was lucky enough to get rid of his every biotrace on our hull—it was done by eye after all—what about Tagai's bloodlight?!

My heartbeat raged in my head louder than a cave echo. I opened my mouth to ask what he was up to and my voice got choked in my throat. Dead silence filled the cockpit: they were already here.

Two Baali in their giant forms, male and female, were approaching the place where Bradoh was laying low. Tall and powerful, they were looking and sniffing around, overturning the ships' remains, and a moment later the whole Boneyard became filled with the enemy.

Dear Ancestor, we're done for!

I couldn't take my eyes off both creatures just a hand-stretch away from our hull. Through my rabhain visuals I was staring right into the female's red eyes, holding my breath.

No, wait... we were right under their nose, yet they were still looking for us?

Bradoh moved, being lifted.

Anyway, this was it!

Right here, right now, it was going to be cracked like an egg...

A jerk!

Fastening belts tightened. The world spun, shaking and exploding in countless flashes of the brightest stars and other things I knew no words for, as the machine was violently thrown to one side, rolling down another ship's hull slope along with other scrap. Helmet sprouted on, trying to keep my head safe with my arms, I heard moans and groans—others had it hard as well, trying to hold on and not be molded into a massive cutlet.

This was worse than before! My body weakened in terror. The rocking fall continued and I felt my guts in my throat. The machine made its last flip and stopped, upside down. Yet it wasn't over, and I quickly covered my mouth with my palm, when Bradoh careened and again fell to the side. Ack! The helmet was in the way!

I shouldn't eat too much on this mission! It will be an unforgivable waste of food!

Suppressing the urge to vomit, I opened my eyes and hatched the helmet. Father's chest was right in front of my face. As I soon realized, he was holding the weight of others, so they wouldn't crush me with their bodies. Though that would be hard to do with my suit on. A father's reflex, I guessed.