The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (2 page)

“Cut!” Jerry Greenspan, the pudgy director of
this
week’s
Bulwark
episode shouted. “That’s a good
one, kids.” Without waiting for a reply, he spun on his heels and
hustled towards the far end of the giant hangar where the grips
were lighting the Touareg II prison set for our next scene as alien
captives.

Visibly annoyed, I climbed out of the prop
ship, rubbing my elbow, with Spud on my heels. My co-star eyed my
arm with a mischievous twinkle, “One of Zyga’s best pilots
indeed.”

“Dude, I wasn’t the one steering this ship,”
I whispered back. I shook my fist at Mark, the special effects
coordinator, who mouthed the word “sorry” from across the
soundstage, safely behind his shielded control panel overlooking
our faux spacecraft. Spud knows that, in real life, I’m a much
better pilot than Ensign Tara Guard—or Mister William “Spud”
Escott, for that matter. I scored better on my final exam at the
Academy last summer than he did, acing the segment on dodging
fusion torpedos in hyperdrive. My own Zoom Starcruiser, which goes
zero to sixty light-years a second
in
a second, is totally
ding-free. That is, if you don’t count the tiny dent from my little
fender bender with the Soviet satellite Sputnik
ⁱ
in 1957.

Yup, you read that right. 1957. Way before
any of us was born—including me. I’d just traveled back to 1957 for
a few minutes on a mission for the Zygan Federation. I know you
don’t believe me, but o
f course
time travel is possible.
Don’t let all the paradox phobics convince you it
isn’t.
ⁱⁱ
All it takes is the right
technology. Earth doesn’t have it yet. But the Zygan Federation
does. Oh, yeah, sure, I guess I’d better explain that, too…

* * *

In the galaxy of Andromeda, just up the
Universe and around the corner from our own galaxy, the Milky Way,
there are billions and billions of stars. Almost all of those
distant stars have orbiting planets, though Earth scientists won’t
be able to see them until they launch the McAuliffe Telescope in
2053. One of those planets, Zyga, orbits a blue dwarf star near the
center of Andromeda.

Zyga is three times the size of Jupiter, and
has millions more inhabitants than our own solar system’s largest
planet, even if you count all of Jupiter’s methane-breathing
microorganisms. Zyga is the home world of the Zygan Federation, an
alliance of intelligent beings from over ten thousand planets in
Andromeda and the Milky Way. It’s a very advanced society with
knowledge and technology that makes earthlings look like chimps,
and, unfortunately, chimps with very dangerous toys.

Earth has a long way to go before it can even
qualify for membership in the Zygan Federation. One basic criterion
is discovering hyperdrive, travel faster than the speed of light.
That should only take Earth scientists a few centuries or so to
achieve. But another criterion, achieving world peace? I don’t see
that happening in my lifetime. Which, like most Zygans’, could be
as long as several thousand years.

Yes, I’m Zygan now. I used to be American,
but you have to choose your loyalties, and I chose Zyga. It wasn’t
to get the chance to live almost forever. In my job, as a Zygan
agent, the odds are kind of against that. My incentive to join the
Zygan Federation was much more important, my brother John. And I’ve
never regretted my decision.

* * *

Maryland—two and a half years ago

I remember it was early May. The cherry
blossoms had already drifted to the ground and blanketed the path
from our farmhouse to the gate like a pink snowfall. The
suffocating humidity that envelopes the East Coast every summer
hadn’t made its way up to Maryland yet, so the day was crisp,
sunny, and clear. My brother George had taken a heavy stack of
books out to the gazebo to study for his finals. Law schools would
not look kindly on an applicant whose grades weren’t totally
impressive. Andi was sitting quietly on the wooden deck by his
side, drawing a picture of her big brother with pastels. My oldest
sister Connie was at the Bradfords tutoring their kids in algebra,
and definitely wouldn’t be back for hours. Blair had flown back
home to the UK, and Kris and the little guys were at an open
casting call for some alien invasion movie they were planning to
shoot at the Washington Monument. And John, well, none of us had
heard from him since he’d sped off to his military “adventure” the
month before. Every time the phone would ring, I’d jump out of my
seat, only to be disappointed time and time again. The next
call—
that
would be John, it had to be.

But the phone’s silence was one more broken
promise. Blinking back tears, I spent a few minutes watching George
and Andi from the shade of our front porch. I’d gotten tired of
carving paths in the fallen blossoms with my skateboard, so,
hoisting it under one arm, I finally wandered down towards the
gate. That’s when I saw them, down the road, coming our way: two
men in uniform, looking grim. There was only one reason I could
think of for their visit. A reason I didn’t want to hear.

“Is this John Rush’s residence?” the soldier
demanded as he approached.

I didn’t move to open the gate. I didn’t nod.
I held my breath and waited.

“Can we come in?” the second man asked.

I glanced to see if George and Andi had
noticed our visitors. No, they seemed rapt in their tasks,
contented. Undisturbed. Loath to hear the dreaded message myself, I
wanted to hold off their pain as long as I could. I turned back to
the soldiers and tried to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Just
give it to me here.”

“Shiloh Rush?” From the second soldier, a
hint of a question.

I didn’t answer, but my expression must have
given me away.

The taller of the two leaned down over the
gate and met my gaze. “All right, Shiloh. Here it is. You’ll know
what to do.” He handed me a manila envelope that felt heavy in my
shaking hands. I noted the insignia embroidered on his extended
sleeve: two gold stripes and one glistening star, shaped like a
sunflower in bloom.

“Everything is in there,” the tall soldier
added. Nodding at his partner, he stood back up erect and turned to
walk away. “Do not delay.”

“Wait!” I cried, “What happened to
John?!”

But Sunflower-sleeve was now halfway down the
road and ignored my cry. The other soldier, a few steps behind,
turned towards me for a moment and, with a sad visage, shook his
head. “Paraffin wings.”

Frantic, I tore open the envelope. It
contained John’s wallet, his antique pocket watch, and a stiff
paper bearing US Army letterhead--and the news I’d feared. I
dropped the package and vaulted over the gate, hoping to catch up
with the military messengers at my top running speed. But, though
the main road stretched for many yards before me, the two soldiers
were no longer visible. The road ahead and the fields to each side
were as barren of life as my heart.

George and Andi were standing at the gate
when I trudged back towards our house. Andi was clutching John’s
wallet to her nose and George was reading the letter with a
stricken expression. Two weeks earlier, it read, during a top
secret mission in a confidential location, John had unexpectedly
disappeared. He had left behind the enclosed belongings and never
returned. Despite intensive search efforts, my beloved brother was
missing in action and believed dead, and there was no trace of his
remains.

I didn’t have the courage to read the letter
myself for months. George had put it back in the envelope along
with the watch. He’d gone up to John’s bedroom our farmhouse’s
attic later that day for a few hours alone, and had come back down
red-eyed, without it. Connie said George had hid the envelope in
the box where John had kept his research papers and flash drives.
She didn’t encourage me to go looking for it.

And, for a long time, I didn’t. There was no
way I was willing to face that truth.

* * *

Maryland—two years ago

It had been one of the rainiest Novembers in
memory. I had no appetite for turkey, nor for sitting around a
holiday table without John in the head chair. I thought I’d go back
to my bed instead and read a book or stream something, so I dragged
myself up the stairs to the second floor. John’s room was on the
third floor and I’d always looked away when I’d passed the closed
door to the attic stairs. I don’t know why, but this time I stopped
in front of it.

The dust on the handrail was pretty thick and
I kept swiping my face to brush off real or imagined cobwebs as I
climbed the stairwell. At the top, I could barely see inside John’s
room. It was only around three o’clock, but the curtains were drawn
and the sky beyond was dark from the thunderclouds. I turned on the
wall switch and lit up the room with the single light bulb hanging
from the rafters on the ceiling.

Something wasn’t quite right. It took me a
few moments to figure it out. No cobwebs, no dust. Save for John’s
things, the room was empty, but it was as clean as it had been when
he’d come home to shower and crash after spending a week of nights
doing research at the University of Maryland. How had it stayed so
neat? George wasn’t terribly domestic, and I doubted Connie would
have added John’s housekeeping to her responsibilities of
supervising the young ones with their daily chores.

Not wishing to disturb the pristine bed, I
pulled out the chair next to the desk and plunked down onto the
soft leather seat. My eyes caught the box with John’s files on the
adjacent bookshelf. The manila envelope lay on top, safeguarding
John’s research secrets in the papers and drives below. I finally
marshaled the strength to pick it up and open it for a second
time.

I tossed the letter from the Army into the
wastebasket. Months had passed and they still hadn’t found John’s
body. George would call the Special Operations number they’d given
us at least once a week, but the answer was always coldly the same.
Their records showed John Rush was still MIA. They could tell us
nothing more. None of the other Army numbers we researched got us
anywhere either. As soon as a responder looked up John’s name, he’d
transfer us to Special Ops, and we were back at square one. We’d
even tried going down to Headquarters, Department of the Army. They
sent us from office to office til we landed back at Special Ops for
our expected answer: no news. The Army could offer us nothing
except a referral to a support group for families of those missing
in action. We passed.

Fuming, I turned the envelope upside down and
caught John’s pocket watch as it slid into my hand. The gold watch
was unusually light and sparkled as I held it up to the light and
admired its intricate etched designs. Grandpa Alexander had given
it to John on his sixteenth birthday, my brother had told me. It
had been a gift to Grandpa from his own great-grandfather many,
many years before. John had treasured the watch, never letting it
out of his hands and forbidding us to touch it. I’d always been
eager to have a peek at the watch’s antique face. Feeling just a
little guilty, I twisted and pressed the stem to open the hunter’s
casing and--

Instantly, John’s room disappeared. Shaken, I
found myself in a sparsely furnished contemporary showroom straight
out of the Jetsons cartoons. In front of me was a large Formica
elliptical table at which was seated a distinguished-looking,
middle-aged man, dressed in a fashionable silver-gray pinstripe
suit that perfectly matched the color of the hair at his temples. I
covered my mouth with my hand to hold in the scream.

“Hello, Shiloh,” the gentleman greeted me,
his voice warm. “My name is Gary.”

I
knew
I shouldn’t have touched that
watch--what had I done? Where was I? I looked around the room
again. Except for me and, and Gary, we were otherwise alone. There
didn’t seem to be even one window, in the seamless curved metallic
walls; just a red door behind Gary, which was closed, and probably
locked. Either this was one weird dream, or I was in big trouble. I
took a few deep breaths, and prayed it was a dream.

“Hi, Gary,” I responded with a tentative
smile and a trembling voice.

He seemed to be waiting for my question.

I took a few more deep breaths. “Okay, uh,
where am I?” I eventually asked.

“At a fork in the road,” he answered
softly.

Chapter 2

Zygint

I was terrified I’d wake up before I could
ask my next question. “John. Where’s John?” I blurted at Gary.

A brief note of sadness crossed his handsome
features before he answered, “I really don’t know. I am sorry.”

I swallowed hard. “But you do know
something.”

Gary nodded. “He’d been on assignment—”

I interrupted, “For you?” Gary’s tailored
suit sure didn’t look like a standard Army-issue uniform. In fact,
it suddenly hit me that none of the Army uniforms we had seen in DC
had borne the sunflower insignia worn by the two military
messengers that had brought us John’s tragic news. I hadn’t
realized that before…

“For us.” Gary agreed as a flash of sadness
crossed his face. “He was one of our best catascopes.”

My confusion must have been obvious. “Us?” I
truly doubted ‘us’ could be Army Special Operations. What was a
catascope? A type of soldier?

“A catascope is a Zygint agent,” he added,
reading my thoughts. “An operative for Zygan Intelligence.”

I was still very confused. “And you’re …
Z-zygan Intelligence?” I ventured.

“A very small part of it.” Gary’s expression
softened, and he sat back in his chair. “John was working for us
undercover. He had instructions to check in periodically, but when
he missed his last rendezvous,” Gary paused and cleared his throat,
“after that we never heard from him again. Our efforts to find him
were … unsuccessful. A great loss.” Gary blinked several times.
“His work over the past eight years had been outstanding. You
should be very proud of—”