Author’s note: Welcome back to my Early Chapters Series, where I post chapters drawn from my published novels that form the Amazon free sample for each novel.
Dark Metamorphosis turns five years old in July. I originally published this second book in the Alien People Chronicles series back in 2021 through Samak Press. To celebrate, I’m sharing the first four chapters of this suspenseful science fiction adventure over four weeks.
Chapter 4
Both eyes popped open unbidden. Calandra blinked a few times and sighed. Darkness shrouded her bedroom, broken in random places by faint moonlight peeking from behind borders of the bedroom window shade. She felt a sharp tug on the blankets. Xttra tossed and turned, eyes still closed. Calandra gazed upon him for a moment, wondering if she should rouse him from his slumber. She decided against it and sat up.
Calandra quietly swung both legs over the side of the bed and rose to her feet. She snatched up a robe from a nearby chair and wrapped it around her sleep clothes. Calandra peeked back at Xttra upon reaching the bedroom door. He now lay still, only partially covered by their Sapinoa hair blankets.
Her destination was their kitchen. Calandra opened a transparent door to their chiller. A blast of frigid air from inside the narrow vertical chamber brushed across both cheeks. Troubled thoughts bombarded her mind as she retrieved a stout bottle filled with glacier water from an upper shelf. Xttra shared unwelcome news after returning home the previous evening. His efforts to get reassigned from his upcoming mission failed. Calandra did not conceal her disappointment when he recounted his conversation with Commander Mikkah. Still, she did not blame Xttra for how things unfolded. Her husband showed his willingness to sacrifice for her and for them as a couple. That meant so much to Calandra.
A different nagging feeling kept her awake now. Why did the Stellar Guard push so hard for him to fulfill this specific mission? It made no sense to her. What was so important that they refused to consider sending any other master pilot out to the Fengar colonies?
Calandra set the glass bottle down on the kitchen table and retrieved a small chalice from a nearby cabinet. She glanced down at her left arm. The artificial fingers remained rigid and lifeless. Calandra longed to pick up more than one thing at a time again. One simple activity, among many, she took for granted when she had two working arms. She sat at the table and poured water into her chalice. Calandra sipped from the chalice. Her eyes drifted over to her arm a second time.
Those stiff unmoving fingers mocked her. Each one serving as a cold reminder of everything she lost.
Her arm. Her innocence. Her former life.
The Earthians bore sole blame for events leading her to this point. An Earthian doctor inserted pieces of metal in her arm, which Kevin called screws, to hold her broken bones in place. Those screws were supposed to stabilize her forearm while each bone mended. Instead, the tiny metal pieces caused a bone infection while she lay in hibernation during the return voyage to Lathos. The infection brought on a worsening fever soon after they landed in Luma.
An image clawed into her mind. That single image hardened and sharpened as it ripped open old scars into fresh wounds.
A bandaged stump.
Calandra sank down against her pillow in her hospital bed when she first noticed the altered limb resting there by her side. She shook with sobs. Her clan doctor warned her they could do nothing to save the arm. If they did not amputate the infected part of the limb, she would die. Nothing he told her did enough to prepare Calandra to cope with a sudden loss of her arm.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
She gazed up through tear-filled eyes. Tears also rolled down Xttra’s cheeks. Calandra’s lips trembled, and she extended her unaffected arm toward him.
“Why would Ahm let this happen to me?” Her words grew choked with sobs. “With everything I’ve been through and with all I’ve endured. Why this? Why now?”
She did not want to confront a hard truth. She hesitated to admit part of the blame rested with her. Calandra ignored her brittle bones in her zeal to go to Earth and it cost her.
Xttra said nothing. He simply crouched down by her bedside and embraced Calandra. Her remaining arm circled his back, and she clung to him while they both shed more tears together.
“Can’t sleep either?”
Xttra’s question jerked Calandra out of her thoughts. She snapped her head toward him. His slight brown curls were a bit disheveled from laying on a pillow for so long. A small smile adorning his lips morphed into a concerned frown when he laid eyes on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
Calandra set down the chalice and brushed her fingers across her cheek. Tears greeted her fingertips. She quickly brushed them aside.
“I’m okay. Well … as okay as I can be, I guess.”
Xttra straightened out his sleeveless sleep shirt and pulled up a chair next to her.
“What’s on your mind? You can tell me.”
She gazed into his deep blue eyes and then let them trail downward. His eyes drifted to the same spot, and then he quickly glanced upward again. Calandra did not need to say a word. Her husband discerned those same unwanted thoughts overtaking her mind.
“We’ll find a way to get this new limb working like your old arm. I give you my word.”
An annoyed feeling crept out from shadows lingering inside her. Calandra heard the same vow before. Making promises over a situation beyond his control did not soothe her feelings. Still, when Xttra grasped her right arm and caressed her forearm with his fingers, she understood he meant well. He only wanted to comfort her troubled soul. Calandra allowed a faint smile to appear at last. She nestled her head against his shoulder.
“Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever be allowed to gain lasting happiness. It seems as elusive as a shadow, forever out of reach.”
Xttra circled his other hand around her shoulder.
“We are masters of our own fate. No force on this planet or in the whole galaxy can take that away from us.”
“I want you to be right. I want to feel something else again besides sadness and anger. I don’t want to worry about you not returning home.”
Calandra closed her eyes tight as he wound his fingers through a lock of auburn hair that fell against her cheek. Being nestled in his arms felt so good. She did not want the feeling to end.
“I want you to stay so much.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Thinking about you going to Fengar never filled me with dread in the past. Now I can’t break free from this awful sensation.”
“I’m worried too. Something about this mission doesn’t add up.”
Xttra’s tone perfectly matched the concern embedded in his words. Calandra popped open her eyes again, leaned forward, and turned to face him.
“What doesn’t add up?”
Xttra gnawed on his lip and cast his eyes at swinging lights hanging above their heads. Each fixture formed a teardrop shape and connected to a single black rod suspended from the ceiling. He stared at the lights for a moment before finally shaking his head.
“I don’t know if I should share this. It’s technically restricted information. I never included it on my official mission report.”
Calandra narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. Those cryptic words aroused instant curiosity.
“What is it? You know you can always trust me. I won’t tell anyone else.”
Xttra lowered his head and locked eyes with her a second time. Fear radiated from each one.
“I chased an old model Cassian dart to Fengar on my most recent mission. My orders were simple. Intercept an unidentified saboteur fleeing with stolen technology. Then I disabled the dart’s secondary thrusters and spoke with the pilot. Everything I thought I knew about my mission turned out to be wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kevin was the pilot.”
Calandra’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Her heart began racing until it shook her entire chest. There had to be another explanation. Kevin Riley was no saboteur. He saved her life on Earth. He sacrificed everything to help them escape.
“Kevin is no traitor,” Calandra insisted. “Nor a thief. He would never risk his freedom over some gadget.”
Xttra answered her with a slow nod.
“That’s just it. I’m convinced someone wanted me to believe we were chasing a common thief at all costs.”
“Why? What do they have to gain?”
“Kevin claims he found evidence that Valadius lives.”
Calandra pressed her lips into a slight frown and shook her head. His claim was a mistaken one. What Kevin said could not be possible.
“Our chief sovereign reported that he died,” she said. “A scout ship recovered the prime oracle’s transport, adrift along with his body. His burial rites were broadcast to every man, woman, and child in Ra’ahm.”
“I know.” Xttra’s gaze shifted to a copy of the Book of Ahm in the adjacent room. It lay on a small table flanking a couch. “We both witnessed the same rites. We both heard the same tragic news about the flare.”
Calandra was still a child when tragedy befell Valadius. Her family mourning his sudden death formed one of her earliest memories. A solar flare sent out a radiation burst that bombarded his transport’s hull. At the time, the prime oracle had set out on a quick journey to the Fengar colonies. He intended to minister to colonists belonging to the Order of Ahm.
It shook citizens of Ra’ahm to the core when their spiritual leader died so tragically. Delcor urged the rest of the Council of Oracles to waste no time and ordain a new prime oracle. The successor to Valadius was a fervent ally of Delcor and his clan during the Separatist War.
Calandra recalled how her grandfather, Janthore, stepped down as first minister only a year after the prime oracle perished. He never gave a reason for why he resigned from his high office. She suspected her grandfather could not cope with the tragic death of a prime oracle of Ahm he knew personally.
“It must be a mistake.” Calandra said. “If he didn’t perish, an oracle taking his place would have been unlawfully chosen.”
Xttra rose from his chair. He walked over to twin glass doors leading to a small balcony and gazed out across Luma’s skyline. A smattering of lights enveloped the old city, chasing away night-time shadows. Calandra scrambled off her chair and joined him at the balcony door. His eyes remained fixed on those same city lights as she slipped her right hand into his left hand.
“If Kevin is right, and our former prime oracle lives, you know what this means.”
Calandra closed her eyes and nodded. She completed in her mind those words Xttra left unspoken.
If true, this revelation would mean their chief sovereign lied to every man, woman, and child in Ra’ahm. It also would mean a usurper now led the Order of Ahm. If their chief sovereign deceived an entire nation on this matter, what other secrets would he keep hidden? Why did her grandfather resign from his service?
“They gave me a choice Calandra.” Xttra turned and gazed into her eyes again. “Accept this mission and track down Kevin on Fengar. Or resign from the Stellar Guard.”
A crease formed in her brow as Calandra’s eyes now drifted over to the Luma skyline. Xttra could not do what they asked of him. Learning the Stellar Guard demanded he track Kevin down and bring him back as a prisoner sickened her. Unlike his fellow Earthians, Kevin had honor. Turning their backs on a friend in his hour of need was not an option.
“You can’t do it,” she whispered. Calandra lowered her head and cast a pleading glance at Xttra. “I owe my life to him. You have to save Kevin.”
“I will not harm him. You have my word.”
Xttra drew her into an embrace and planted a tender kiss on her lips. Calandra soaked in his kiss and tightened her embrace of him. Their lips lingered for a moment until she opened her eyes again and drew back a step.
“Pray for me,” he said. “Pray this mission does not send us down a path neither of us wants to travel.”
Fear squeezed Calandra like an invisible hand. Sleep would now elude her until Xttra returned home from Fengar and told her what he found.
Then, at last, he could stay.
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Very interesting sci-fi story. Looking forward to more of the story.