Mother of Stars

Deja Vu - Connor

"NO!"

My mouth fell open in shock. We had been so close. We could've regrouped and figured out what information Neval kept from us. Now I was at the mercy of a rogue artificial intelligence.

I slumped into my seat, careful not to sit on my tail. Neila stirred next to me, her armor rustling against the seat. Stars flew past our little cruiser in streaks. The three humanoid Defects sat calmly in the spacious cockpit, reflections of the stars glinting off their purple skin.

Griff stomped toward the front, growling under his breath. He seized the middle Defect and shook it violently by its shoulders. "Turn this fucking ship around. Now!"

The thing didn't resist one bit. It stared at him curiously, then replied, "No."

Griff's black wings twitched, one of which was slowly rebuilding itself from being lopped off. The tip of his tail ignited into a jet of plasma, and he brought it within inches of the Defect's chest. "I swear, I will kill you if you don't. You lied to us once, and I'm not going to fall for it again."

"If you kill me, you will not be able to pilot this vessel," it stated with an ounce of smugness.

"I'm sure we could figure it out," Griff said, letting the tip of his tail drift closer to its chest. Smoke began to swirl from it, but the Defect remained unresponsive.

I contacted Griff through his implant. "Don't."

"We can't risk leaving them alive." His gaze never left the Defect.

I glared at him. "We also can't risk stranding ourselves in an alien spaceship."

After a few moments of silence, the Defect spoke, "You should listen to your friend."

My eyeridges sprung up. Griff reeled his head back. "You can still hear us?"

"I hear all."

He dropped the Defect and strutted back to his seat. He slumped forward and held his muzzle in his hands as his eyes vibrated furiously in contemplation. The Defect returned to its position at the front of the cockpit. Fear bubbled up inside me. How would we ever reason with this thing?

Neila stirred again, groaning. I scooped her up and put her into a more comfortable position in my lap. Her armored head fell to one side as I held her close to my belly. Her implant told me she was in some kind of coma, but I connected with it anyway. "Neila, please wake up. We might need you."

She didn't respond.

"They are manipulating you."

I froze at the sound of the voice. There, in between the rows of seats and standing at the height of a wiener dog, stood the gnarled bipedal Drake-head from my worst nightmare. Phobos blinked his eye sockets. He looked real as ever, even as he gave me his ever-present evil grin.

"I thought you were gone for good," I whispered as I averted my gaze to a corner of the ship.

Phobos' bottom jaw bobbed as he chuckled. "Aha. You forget all too quickly."

I blinked, and he was gone. His voice emanated from inside my head. "Fear never leaves you."

I stroked Neila's armored head, trying to calm my nerves. The last thing I needed was to freeze up just as I needed to act. Griff hadn't moved much from his contemplative position.

Not even a minute later, the ship's warp drive began to wind down. The stars halted. An enormous sand-colored planet zoomed up to our ship. It took up the entire viewing angle of the curved cockpit window. White ice covered the north pole, and we didn't have a view of the south pole from our angle. The entire midsection of the planet was less defined than the top; it had a haze to it. My interface outlined it as a massive sandstorm, and we were aiming toward its upper edge.