The road to Altina was quiet, save for the low hum of the engine and the creaking of the suspension. Soren sat in the back of the truck, his eyes squinting against the bright morning sun bleeding through the canopy. The vehicles were squat and large—militia-type transports painted to camouflage in with the jungle. The narrow viewports on the front were angled and ringed in dust, built to fit a handful of lacravida in each one. They lumbered through the forest like hulking mechanical beasts—thick, bulbous tires with deep treads gripping the ground like claws.

  The roads weren’t paved, just compacted sand and root-laced soil cleared by years of traffic. Canvas canopies stretched over the cargo beds in the rear, rigged with drop flaps and heat-shielding liners. A small emblem marked the driver-side doors: the sigil of Berilinsk’s militia, scratched but intact.

  The four-armed, four-eyed, lizard-man named Inelius sat to Soren’s left—lazarco, they were apparently called. As far as his personality went, he seemed to be a stoic soft-spoken… man? And Tamiyo seemed to trust him well enough. If Soren had been blind (and understood the language), he might never have known how different Inelius looked from a human.

  Tamiyo was seated across from him, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her antennae flicking occasionally as if listening to something he couldn’t hear. Elias was beside her, legs crossed, a tablet in one hand. He seemed to be working on some sort of project but Soren couldn’t tell what. They rode in the middle truck of the convoy, two other trucks flanking their front and rear. In the front cabin, the hooved woman with the twin ponytails was driving and the purple-haired girl with metal arms and legs rode shotgun.

  Soren shifted, the new clothes stiff in places where the fabric was still stretching and settling. The translator rested against his thigh, screen tilted up and waiting. There were questions he wanted to ask. About this world, about what had happened to humanity, about what he was. But every time he tried to start, the words tangled up in his throat.

  Finally, he looked over at Elias and cleared his throat. “Hey, um Elias, can I ask you something? Off the record, or whatever counts as that here.”

  Elias looked up and smiled a little. “Yeah I suppose that’s alright. Thinking about what you’ve been through, at least what we know of it, it makes sense you have questions.”

  “I have so many questions,” Soren said.

  Elias chuckled warmly. “Well I’ll try to answer what I can. Do you mind if I ask you some as well?”

  “Sounds like a fair enough trade. My memory is a little all over the place but I’ll answer as honestly as I can—maybe it’ll help jog something free in my head.”

  Elias chuckled again. “Alright, you go first, what do you got?”

  “Well,” Soren began. “This may sound a little stupid but, do I… look normal to you?”

  Elias blinked, then leaned back slightly, expression tilting somewhere between thoughtful and cautious. “Normal enough, I suppose. You’re not the tallest human to ever exist, but there’s plenty of evidence to show that your height and strength are some of the lesser mysteries about you. Beyond that, yeah I’d say you look as normal as can be for a lost relic of pre-Conservatory human civilization.”

  Soren stared blankly. “Pre-Conservatory? What’s the Conservatory?”

  Elias puffed up his cheeks and blew out a breath of air. “Wow, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  Tamiyo spoke up. “The Sovereign Earth Conservatory is the largest government entity present across our known universe. They control dozens if not hundreds of habitable worlds, and many more uninhabitable celestial bodies. Regardless of if the planetary body supports life, the central goal under their regime is the same. Extract resources for the enrichment of the elites.”

  Soren took a moment to process everything she had said. Finally, he said, “That sounds very familiar, and not in a good way. Why is it called the Sovereign Earth Conservatory?”

  “Because they’ve existed since before Earth became uninhabitable,” Elias answered.

  Soren had a feeling that was going to come up. “So the Earth is truly uninhabitable? I was kind of hoping I was misremembering Aurania saying that from before she smacked me in the face.”

  “You sound sad,” Tamiyo stated.

  “Do I?” Soren said. “I’m sorry…” he was quiet for a moment. “My memories are all scattered and fragmented. But I’m pretty sure that I grew up on Earth.”

  The three of them exchanged glances.

  “I had heard you claimed that to Aurania when you first stumbled in Berilinsk,” Elias said. “It’s hard to believe, no one has lived there for, man I don’t even remember what we learned in school… 2,000 years maybe?”

  Soren was quiet again. It doesn’t feel real.

  Elias continued, “If you truly did grow up on Earth, that would make you the only person alive who remembers it like that. The Earth we were taught about in school is just a myth.”

  That point held heavy in the air.

  “What was it like?” Elias asked gently.

  Soren blinked slowly, like the question had caught him off guard. “I… don’t know if I can describe it right. It’s all… bits and pieces. Feelings more than facts.” He glanced out through the flap of the canopy, watching the jungle blur past. “I suppose the land wasn’t too different from this planet. Trees, oceans, blue skies, rain, earthquakes…” he trailed off.

  Inelius piped up, “I was wondering why you kept saying ‘earth’quakes, no one else calls them that. I guess it makes sense if that’s where you grew up.”

  “Yeah,” Soren said. “There weren’t really any other planets you could live on besides Earth when I was born. The first Jump Drive was invented when I was five by a man most people just referred to as The Professor. By the end, people either worshipped him or wanted him dead.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Tamiyo tilted her head slightly. “Which one were you?”

  “First one, then the other,” Soren said. He rubbed his thumb over the translator tablet. “As a kid, I was obsessed with his genius. He kept churning out inventions no one else could even understand.” He felt himself grinning as he remembered the nostalgia.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Then his tone grew dimmer. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to hear about the Conservatory. Even back then, the governments controlling Earth were fracturing and becoming more authoritative. There was a… a clash with the militaries of Earth and the cult-like following that had formed around The Professor. It came to be known as ‘The Razing of White Star.’ I enlisted eleven months later.”

  The truck shifted slightly as it drove along, and the engine changed gears. It felt like they were ever so slightly heading downhill now. Some dust from the road filtered in through the canopy covering their heads, casting the glimpses Soren caught of the road in flickering gold and green. He watched the light shift across Tamiyo’s face, then turned back to the tablet in his hands.

  “I fought against the cult for years. But slowly, I came to see the corruption of those issuing my orders. And eventually, a woman approached me—Lulu. She brought me into The Professor’s fold.”

  “She sounds like she was important to you,” Tamiyo said softly.

  “Yes…” It hurt for him to think about her.

  The others watched him quietly, absorbing every word.

  “I’m sure we could interrogate you for the next three days straight and still have more questions to ask than you’d have answered,” Elias said. “That hardly seems fair though, you’re the one trying to get his bearings. What other questions are eating at you?”

  The truck lurched a little bit as it hopped some sort of bump in the road, like maybe a large root from a nearby tree. Soren took a deep breath, clearing his head from the heavy memories. The four of them were alone in the truck bed as it drove along, but Soren still felt the need to check his surroundings and make sure none of the giant women were within earshot.

  “Alright… what… species are Aurania and her people? Like, what are they exactly?”

  “They're lacravida,” Elias said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Soren looked up from the translator and just stared back at him.

  Tamiyo jumped in, “It's alright Soren, I had never met any non-humans either until several weeks ago.”

  Soren was trying to fit the pieces together. “Wait so how can you understand them so well?” He asked her.

  She pointed at the antennae sticking out of her head and intentionally wiggled them around. “One of the perks of being a CIPHER. I can understand most dialects because of these.”

  OK, that made sense. “Wait, you said that word before,” Soren said with a curious tone. “What's a CIPHER? My translator keeps popping it up like an acronym”

  “Yep, that's right,” Tamiyo said. “It stands for Cognitive Intelligence Processors and Humanoid Emulating Robotics.”

  “Gesundheit,” Soren said sarcastically.

  They all looked at him quizzically and Tamiyo scrunched her face while wiggling her antennae, trying to decipher his meaning.

  “Health?” She finally asked. “That was a different old Earth dialect than the one you've been using.”

  Soren waved it off. “Nevermind. Just meant what you said was a mouthful. But I guess it does technically explain what you are. Some sort of cyborg android?”

  “Yeah, more or less,” Tamiyo said. “Artificial Intelligence installed into synthetic bio-mechanics to emulate human physiology and psychology.”

  “Interesting…” Soren shifted again, scratching the back of his neck. “Okay so… the lacravida.”

  Elias glanced up from his pad, curious about the impending question.

  “Um,” Soren hesitated. He wasn’t sure where to start. “I’m not trying to be weird, it’s just… they’re all, like… well, they're clearly very accomplished as a people. They’re all really tall, they’re um… they’re strong,” he rubbed his face where the axe had hit him. “They seem… culturally… complex? Very well optimized. Like biologically. Structurally. Anatomically. I should stop talking.” He quickly looked at Tamiyo. “...help…”

  Elias was staring at him, on the verge of grinning.

  Inelius snorted back a chuckle.

  Tamiyo blinked. There was a beat of silence. Then she yelled out, “Oooooohhh. That’s why you can’t seem to look at them for more than half a second!” She burst out laughing, then the other two joined her. “I don’t know why it took me so long to put that together.”

  They all kept laughing, but Soren got the feeling it wasn’t to make fun of him. He felt less tense about the topic suddenly. “Why don’t they have any clothes on?!” he yelled out.

  Elias chuckled some more, “They have clothes on. Yeah, less than us I suppose, but that’s just normal for them.”

  Tamiyo nodded. “I’ve been learning about them myself recently. Lacravida physiology is highly adapted for both fertility and combat. Spiritually, they believe themselves to be the ‘mother race’ to all other races. But their height, their strength, their secondary sexual traits. It’s all part of their natural baseline.”

  “They’re not doing it to mess with you,” Elias added, half-smirking. “It’s just what they are.”

  Soren leaned back in his seat, brow furrowed in thought. After a few moments, he just let out a low, “huh…”

  “Your confusion about them is normal,” Elias said. “It threw me for a loop when I first came to Berilinsk. I mean I had met lacravida before, but that was during my military service. The lacravida I served with weren’t as open with their attire. After I got out, I decided to move to Berilinsk at the suggestion of a sniper I knew. She did not properly prepare me, really caught me off guard.”

  They all laughed again, even Soren this time.

  “How did you manage to not insult them and get kicked out on your first day?” Inelius asked.

  “Oh, well I at least knew to be a little extra respectful since they have tempers,” Elias said. “Riza at least warned me of that.”

  Inelius choked and blustered, all four eyes going wide. “Wait, you served with Riza?!”

  Elias grinned again, “Yeah. Me and her go way back. She vouched for me after she told me I should move to Berilinsk because my medical skills would be much appreciated here.”

  “She’s so intense,” Inelius noted. “That cannon she carries around is insane.”

  “Yeah,” Elias said. “Riza is a bit of an outlier when it comes to lacravida. She’s not as warm-mannered. Most are very communal, very aware of their effect on other species, even if they claim not to be. And their society just tends to be matriarchal by default on account of them all being women.”

  That caught Soren off guard. “Wait, how does that work?”

  Their conversation was interrupted by three short bangs from the front of the truck—Violet, trying to get their attention about something.

  “We must be coming up on Altina,” Elias said. He set his tablet down and grabbed a couple canvas support rails, then stood up to peek his head out. “Yep!” he yelled down at them. “We’re at the perfect spot if you guys want to appreciate Altina from the distance.”

  Soren finished reading the translation and then stood up as well. Inelius didn’t seem to feel the need, but Tamiyo excitedly sprung up a moment after Soren did, her blonde and pink hair flying like ribbons out behind her in the air.

  The jungle thinned, and the sun spilled brighter through the canopy. A moment later, the trees gave way to a wide, cleared path lined with power pylons and scaffolding rigs. Altina was just ahead: a sprawling plateau installation carved into the dense forest, its structures a strange blend of old-world stone and modern alloy.

  The town was built at the base of a plateau like a hybrid between a nature preserve and a forward operating base. Clusters of low-slung buildings sat nestled among the tree roots and ridgelines, built from a mix of carbonsteel and repurposed stone. Broad canopies and reflective panels shielded equipment from the heat, and shimmering conduits snaked between structures like artificial vines. The town sprawled out and up the side of the cliff, like it had once held many more personnel than it did now. A compact spaceport jutted out overhead from the cliffside.

  The Observatory was the tallest structure. Its frame hummed with active shielding and a large dome rotated lazily to track something in orbit. The dome was built atop a large circular building that appeared to be the most maintained portion of the outpost. Everything else looked like they were locked in a slow war against the reclamation of nature.

  The truck began to slow. Ahead, a gate slid open at the base of the nearest structure, and several figures in uniform stepped out to greet them. One of them raised a hand toward the truck and spoke into a comm.

  “Guess this is it,” Elias murmured.

  Soren stayed standing, a sense of unease coiling deep inside.