“I can’t believe I owe my life to a Syn,” Jakob groaned as he lay weakly on the black topped table rubbing at his shoulder. Liz slapped his hand away as she redressed his wounds.

  “Lucky you,” she said as she pushed aside the first aid kit and returned to studying the faintly glowing script of the Syncline holograph projector.

  “We all owe our lives to Agra and Quintek,” Taylor said as he dug a few ration bars from Liz’s pack and ran them over to his companions.

  “What I wouldn’t do for some real food,” Jakob groaned as he took foil wrapped bar and threw it aside. Taylor picked it up and brought it and the rest to Liz where she was busy fiddling with the hologram controls

  “Agra might feign weakness, but she is just as lethal as any Syn,” Liz said as she swiped her hand and called up the red monotone image of the Syn queen they had seen before. “Maybe more so.”

  “Yeah,” Taylor shivered. “She tore that Syn to shreds.”

  “You say that like is a bad thing. Two down four to go,” Jakob counted off on his fingers.

  “It is a bad thing,” Liz snapped. She looked at the flickering red image of Agra’s mother looming above them with discomfort. It was the holograms willful glare that especially terrified her, the same murderous look Agra had during their confrontation with the Syn. “Did you see the look on her face?”

  “Maybe that’s why Agra hates killing so much,” Taylor frowned. “Maybe she knows that deep down she would enjoy it like all other Syn.”

  “That would explain her strange resentment toward the other Syn. She doesn’t hate them, only herself,” Liz said tapping the table.

  “What are you talking about?” Jakob grunted. Wincing, his face contorted into a grimace as he tried to sit up. Struggling for breath Jakob gave up after a few seconds with a pained look on his face. “We’ve got to stop psychoanalyzing Agra or whatever and figure out what we are going to do next. I mean what are we going to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Liz said shaking her head with a worried frown. “With the shape you’re in Jakob we will have to rely on Agra more than ever and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Then help me instead of messing with this piece of junk,” Jakob groaned as the hologram of Agra’s mother playing on a loop above him began to distort and fade. Liz was once again tinkering with the touch controls to little success.

  “I think Liz might be on to something,” Taylor said craning his neck to study the glyphs and symbols illuminated on the alien control panel. “Maybe this wreckage could be the key to getting out of here.”

  “With what? This computer thing?” Jakob scoffed painfully. “I doubt this thing has a radio. Even if it did who would we talk to with it? Another queen? Besides I thought we never detected radio waves from any Syn ships.”

  “I have to try something,” Liz exclaimed.

  She pounded the console in frustration, jumping back when more flickering red dots spilled out into the air above her to coalesce into another distinct shape. Agra had appeared in her unmistakable wrappings moving forward with purpose on her face. This holographic image of her marched in place with a wrapped bundle draped over her shoulder.

  “What is that?” Taylor said grasping at the holographic haze surrounding him and his comrades.

  Agra was suspended in space without any background context seemed to struggle with the bulky load as she shuffled forward under the burden of so much dead weight. Whatever it was seemed wrapped in the same type of parachute fabric her and Anson had gathered up over the years.

  “Liz what did you do? Is this a recording?” Jakob asked as he rolled over shielding his eyes from the blinding light.

  “Yeah I think so,” Liz said as she tried to repeat whatever she had did with the intelligible glowing markings on the hologram control panel. It was then when holographic Agra tore the bundle from off her shoulders and threw it to the ground like garbage. The cloth wrappings unfurled as the dead mass crumpled on the ground revealing a limp unmistakably human hand. Agra bowed as another figure, a Syn, materialized into frame hunched over and wringing its hands. The Humans watched in stunned silence as Agra bent forward and pulled the parachute fabric from Anson’s gaunt face. A trickle of blood-stained Greg Anson’s blistered lips and his eyes were half shut and blank. A slash to the throat had killed him. The other Syn seemed to look upon the body with supreme satisfaction. Agra rose at his gesture as the hologram began to warp and faded away. Jacob had managed to power off the projector with a misplaced swipe of his hand. That is when they noticed Agra standing dumbfounded at the top of the entry ramp.

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  “You killed him,” Taylor stammered.

  “Wait please.”

  It was all Agra could manage before a shard of metal flew past her head. Liz had thrown it. She bent down to retrieve another scrap of metal from the ground

  “How could you!”

  Agra dodged another piece of metal as Liz grabbed for a long thin piece of pipe on the floor. She brandished the jagged end at Agra who raised her clawed hands defensively.

  “Be careful,” Jakob cried. Agra backed away slowly.

  “Please you don’t understand,” she pleaded. Behind her Quintek raised his clawed hands with a low growl.

  “What’s there to understand? Greg Anson raised you and you killed him anyway. You pretend to be different, but you are not. You’re just like any other of your foul murderous kind,” Liz punctuated with her makeshift spear raised in Agra’s direction

  Agra shrunk back with a bowed head as the humans looked upon her with fury and disgust.

  “I know,” she croaked weakly as she fled down the ramp.

  “Agra Wait!” Taylor cried running after her. Liz grabbed him, pulling him back.

  “I need you here,” Liz ordered.

  “But Agra,” Taylor complained as he pushed himself away. “You didn’t let her speak!”

  “Taylor!” Jakob croaked. It was too late. Taylor had vanished down the ramp in pursuit. Liz swore, throwing the scrap of metal in her hand against the wall in frustration. She ran back to Jakob’s side.

  “We’re not getting off this planet, aren’t we?” Jakob asked. Liz didn’t answer him, staring back at the ramp as she processed what had happened.

  “Greg Anson never did,” she replied somberly

  Dim starlit night cascaded down an ice encrusted gash in the domed ceiling of a snow filled chamber. The remnants of an intricate gilded mosaic lined the warped and tilted walls of the once opulent room. The engraved figures of crowned Syn, with gleaming iridescent silver bodies and regal red feathers lined the darkened walls in stylistic profile as they marched in a procession through the stars. Quintek stood in defiant awe of what he was seeing as he stood at the center of the circular room. His very presence in such a holy sanctum had once seemed impossible and yet here he was. A chill ran up his back as he extended his hand and rested it on a cracked black stone throne situated in the center of the room. Jutting from the frozen ground in a beam of dim white light the throne acted as a pedestal for a conical golden headdress placed on a tattered blue cushion. Agra didn’t even acknowledge the relic as she shuffled hunched over into a smaller adjacent chamber.

  Withdrawing his inquisitive hands from the crown Quintek followed quickly after her. Agra grabbed him as soon as he passed through the arched entryway and threw him against one of the few intact cylinders of glass left in the dark ice encrusted room.

  “Can’t you just leave me alone,” Agra hissed. Cornered Quintek looked met Agra’s gaze with unshaken resolve. He felt shattered glass crackle beneath his three toed feet as willed himself one step closer to her.

  “No Agra I cannot,” he replied staunchly despite Agra’s raised claws. Agra turned away, no longer willing to do anything but collapse against a nearby wall with a choked sob.

  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” Agra lamented. She slid to the ice encrusted floor. Quintek watched as she plucked a molted black fragment of eggshell from the ground.

  “I hate my father for telling me who I could be. I hate my teacher for telling me who I was. They burdened me with a choice I never wanted to make,” Agra said smashing the fragment against the wall.

  “I never wanted to choose. I never wanted anybody to die,” she exclaimed defiantly. “I thought that things would be different when others arrived, but nothing has changed. I’ve once again been forced to choose, to kill.”

  “If you do nothing death is unavoidable. Soon the others will seek you out like the last time and we will be forced to fight. The losers will die.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Agra agreed morosely.

  “Then ignore the choice you think you were given and assert your potential,” Quintek exclaimed as if it was obvious. Agra gave him a confused look. Quintek continued, gesticulating with purpose.

  “Our kin, they are aimless Agra. They need direction, your direction. It is all they want and understand. They sense and recognize what they think is their queen. If you want to save them you’re going to have to accept who you are and give them what they desire. Otherwise, your human friends will kill them all or us them,” Quintek said simply. Agra sighed dismissively, shaking her head with a chuckle.

  “You want me to claim my mothers’ power as my own, the power to control our Kin? That’s what you’ve been after?”

  “You know what it entails don’t you?” Quintek pressed.

  “No,” Agra said staring blankly at the ground.

  “I do,” Quintek offered. Agra could not help but notice the strange look in his fiery red eyes. He was looking at her with predatory need. “Together we can stop this pointless fighting. No one has to die if you assert your will.”

  Agra seriously considered his words.

  “What exactly do I have to do to have their power?” Agra asked with slow rising conviction.

  Ribbons of color danced high in the pitch-black night of Altaire IV as a group of figures trampled after each other in the snow. Wild red eyes flashed in the dim starlight as they paused panting in the snow. Steam wafted from their open beaks as they sniffed frantically at the still night air. Abruptly one of the Syn cried out and dived claw first into the soft powdery snow. The black feathery down draped down its back bristled as it uncovered the frozen remains of one of its kin. The others soon joined in its ravenous attempt to bite and claw at the rock-hard corpse. Impatient hunger soon drove them back into the snow wastes on the trail of an almost imperceptible whisper they sensed on the wind.