War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past (37 page)

"So you're keeping me safe for more than the
Queen?" she teased.

"No, of course not. I'm just following the
Queen's orders to keep you safe.

Nimesha limped to her small stealth ship. She
hadn't been prepared for Anlon to have any weapons at all, let
alone a cannon launcher. It stumped her where he had gotten it, but
knew there was much more to killing Anlon than Kirill had led her
on to believe. He had told her this would be a simple mission, yet
it certainly wasn't turning out that way. A news article had
recently surfaced about what had happened to Giustino and knew the
timing was of no coincidence. Somehow, all of these things were
intertwined, she just wasn't able to figure out how yet.

There were too many questions she didn't know
the answers to and she didn't like it one bit. She liked knowing
what was going on at all times, not being left in the dark to find
things out for herself, yet it appeared that Kirill was keeping her
in the dark about this boy. That had been a huge mistake on his
part and a big reason why she wasn't returning his calls. It was
time for her to finish the job on her own terms. Kirill was hiding
more than a few things from her and she planned to figure out what
those things were.

The stealth ship roared to life and she flew
off Gaea. Anlon would be long gone by now, but she had a good idea
where he'd be headed after finding out the apartment belonged to a
GSOU member. If her gut was right, Anlon was on some trip for
vengeance which only led to one place: Erebos. She pulled the
handle to activate Sonodrive and the ship lurched forward to its
destination.

Anlon awoke when he felt the distinct jolt of
Sonodrive disengaging. He got out of bed and left Kanti alone while
he walked down to the co-pilot seat. As he neared it, a grey,
lifeless, planet loomed through the window.

"We'll land at the spaceport in about fifteen
minutes," Falcone informed him. "You can sit tight until then."

"Okay," Anlon stared straight ahead,
observing the dead planet.

As
Drako Mavros
broke through the
atmosphere, Anlon could see that there really was nothing on the
planet. It was drab and colorless, except for the bright orange
lakes and rivers of lava flowing on parts of the planet. How any
race lived on the planet was far beyond him. It gave him shivers
just thinking about the deadly creatures that must live on the
surface of the planet.

Anlon saw a small make-shift camp set up near
a mountain they flew over. "People camp out there?"

Falcone burst out in laughter. "Camp?" he
kept laughing uncontrollably. "Races don't
camp
on Erebos.
Those are nomadic natives. They stay far away from cities. Only a
fool would come here to go
camping
."

"I just didn't think it was possible for
anyone to live away from cities for extended periods of time. There
is nothing on the land but grey dirt and lava"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure how
they live out in the wasteland. The planet is brutal and there is
not much, if anything, to survive on for long."

"Are all of the moons of Plouton this
deadly?"

"Some of them are worse than this, but some
are better for civilization," Falcone flew towards a small city.
"You definitely don't want to go to Tatarus or Thanatos if you
don't have to. I've heard terrible stories about both. They make
this look like a nice planet."

"What could be worse than this?" Pointing out
of the window.

"The Deimos Brotherhood won't even go to
those moons. That should tell you something about how dangerous
they are. You can at least roam the lands here without too much
fear of the creatures, but on the others you won't last ten
minutes. The monsters would snatch you up before you could even
think to run."

As they got closer to the city he could see
the spaceport, and strangely enough, it was thriving with races. As
dead as the planet looked, this walled city seemed to be teeming
with life. Falcone pulled the ship up to an empty spot on the
spaceport and landed. A voice came through the comline of
Drako
Mavros
as soon as the ship touched down.

"How long are you going to be conducting your
business here?"

"A week at the most," Falcone responded,
powering down the engines. "We plan to be long gone before
then."

"If you need more time, check back in,
otherwise your ship will be impounded. Thank you for coming to
Erebos."

"Well, we're here," Falcone spread his arms.
"The beautiful planet of Erebos. Why anyone would willingly come
here, is still something I'm trying to figure out."

"I'll go wake up Kanti."

"Go do that," he winked, making kissing faces
at Anlon.

Anlon quickly turned around and walked up the
stairs to wake Kanti, but found she was already talking to Camillus
in the cabin.

"We're here," Anlon told them.

Camillus looked at him worried. "Kanti
shouldn't be here. I made a terrible mistake to allow this. We'll
wait on the ship while you and Falcone find his friend. We can meet
back here once we find him."

"Camillus, she'll be fine," Anlon insisted.
"We're going to go straight to Falcone's friends' place."

"That' what worries me!" Camillus exclaimed.
"We can't trust a stranger not to tell the Deimos Brotherhood when
the Queen can't even trust her own Council!"

Anlon let out a deep breath. "Calm down,
Camillus. We'll go meet the guy and if you don't like him we'll
come back to the ship."

"Oh!" Camillus raised his metal arms. "We'll
just bring her back and expect the Deimos Brotherhood not to follow
us!
Great
plan. This was masterfully thought through,
Anlon."

"Camillus," Kanti placed her hand on his cold
shoulder. "You and Anlon are more than enough to protect me if
anything happens. You don't have to be so worried."

Camillus just shook his head and left the two
of them.

"What's up with him all of a sudden?" Falcone
approached them.

Kanti shrugged. "Just overreacting. Let's get
going before he tries to hold me back."

"He's staying in downtown Kremiville, so we
have a short way to go before we get there," Falcone informed them
all as they stepped foot on Erebos for the first time. "Don't
wander too far from me, this is the last place you want to get
lost."

Anlon stared at the weird, abnormal, races as
they made their way through the crowded spaceport. Very few of them
had human resemblances, making he and his companions stand out from
the crowd. All four of them took on human forms and Anlon saw a lot
of hateful glares shot towards them because they were now out of
place. He didn't blame them, he would hold a grudge too if he had
to live on a planet like this because he didn't look human
enough.

Falcone led them through gigantic metal doors
to a city that looked very much like Hermes with stands set up all
over the place. Weapons, drugs, and even slaves were chained
together in the open for everyone to see. Anlon looked to Camillus
and saw him hovering right behind Kanti, ready to attack if anyone
tried to take her. He was glad Camillus was here because he would
undoubtedly thwart any possible attacks, though one bothered them
as the traveled through the city. Most appeared to move out of
their way as they passed by as if they were going to get them
sick.

"This way," Falcone motioned to them. "We're
getting closer."

He led them towards a bridge built over what
appeared to be small city from the lights Anlon saw shimmering
below them. It was big enough to fit a cruiser and was caged to
prevent anyone from going over the sides and plummeting hundreds of
feet to their death.

Falcone sped up the pace. "Not too much
further until we get there."

They followed him down the long, and
seemingly endless, bridge to the small city below. Though it wasn't
a city Anlon would want to live in, and by looking at Kanti, he
could tell she was thinking the same thing.

The buildings were built close together and
most were crumbling apart in the streets if they hadn't already
fallen completely. Prostitutes walked the sidewalks, revealing
everything they had in hopes of making some quick money and
homeless were sleeping on the streets amongst dead corpses and
trash.

"You're not leaving my sight," Camillus
grabbed Kanti. "This was more than just a terrible idea."

She nodded, not wanting Camillus to let go of
her, afraid that she'd be snatched up at any moment and turned into
a slave. Even with their weapons, they all felt unsafe, except
Falcone who was walking along like this was completely normal. They
followed him down the broken streets and stopped in front of a tall
building, which Anlon guessed was supposed to be an apartment, but
looked more like a multistory shack.

Falcone turned to them and smiled. "We're
here. This is the place I told you about."

"He lives
here
?" Kanti said in
disgust.

"I don't know if you were paying attention to
the rest of Kremiville, but it doesn't get much better than
this."

"Camillus was right. I would've been better
off staying on the ship," she muttered.

"Oh give the guy a chance!" Falcone walked
inside. "You haven't even met him yet and you're already judging
him."

"I don't think I want her to meet him
anymore," Camillus followed, still holding on to Kanti.

Falcone walked inside of a wooden elevator
and waited for the others to enter.

"Are you sure that's going to work?" Anlon
stopped. "I think we should take the stairs."

Falcone looked around the elevator. "Oh
please, we'll be fine. It's obviously fine if it's still in one
piece."

They all got on and Falcone pressed a button
that surprisingly took them to the third floor with only little
creaking. He led the way off and down the hall to the last room on
the right.

"Who wants to knock?" Falcone offered. "No
one? I guess I will then since you all seem so shy."

He knocked on the door and got a response
almost immediately. "Took you long enough. I've been waiting here
for hours."

"They were all scared something was going to
happen to them. I tried to tell them nothing would happen here, but
they were still reluctant."

A dark blue Filibian with green eyes stepped
out of the doorway. The top of his head was shaped like it had been
squished and the somehow reinflated, still leaving the wrinkles.
His smile reached the top of his high cheekbones as he held his
arms out.

"Kanti!" the Filibian said. "What are you
doing on this horrid planet?"

Kanti's jaw dropped in recognition of the
race. "Bimisi?" She looked to Anlon and Camillus. "What are you
doing here?"

Nimesha landed her stealth ship at the
spaceport, not wanting to return to base yet to reveal her failure.
She still needed to stay hidden and finish her job, only then,
would she report back to Kirill. Seeing him in one of his
uncontrollable rages, especially directed towards her, was not
something she wanted to be welcomed back to.

She exited the ship and looked around the
spaceport to see if she was lucky enough to find Anlon without any
extensive tracking. Fortunately, it looked like that was going to
be the case because of the silver and black ship that surely didn't
belong to any criminal. It was a very unique ship that was well
maintained, not something that should be on Erebos. She walked the
ship and saw that it was fully armed, ready for any type of battle
it may run into, leaving no doubt in her mind that she was close to
finding him.

She dashed through the spaceport, shoving her
way past races, hoping to catch them before they got too far. After
entering the city, she stopped at one of the stands to see if they
had seen any humans come by recently. The bug race nodded and
pointed her to the bridge that led to Kremiville. They were now
within her grasp with no way out, not on Erebos anyway. This was
her ground and they wouldn't get away this time. She still didn't
want to rush things too much, so she'd lie low and keep an eye on
them. After some more walking around the city, she finally found
where they had gone. Soon her job would be complete, with only a
few setbacks along the way.