Space Opera Excerpt

His fingers glided across the trackpad as he input the passcode for the door.

A robotic feminine voice called out his name: “Glion Bernathen.”

“Correct,” he droned, and then the same voice indicated that it was analyzing Glion’s tone before the door suddenly slid open.

The room was freezing. Glion was immediately reminded of the ice planet Zarath XII and shuddered. That was a place he cared to never return to once more. He looked back and called someone forward with his hands.

In bobbled in two people, each holding the end of an object that was swathed in cloth. Their heaving breaths seemed to crystallize in the air. They set the precious cargo down gingerly and began to unwrap it. The cloth unraveled, Glion took a step forward.

Staring into his eyes was a pair of green eyes, the hue of which Glion thought of as pine. They shifted back and forth, wide, as though fearful. The eyes belonged to a human girl. She could be no older than ten, but Glion did not want to produce his Analyzer and find out. He felt a pang of guilt stabbing at his heart, but he reminded himself to resign his sentiments.

If I were her, I’d be afraid, too, he thought, and that was that.

“Hello,” said Glion, falling to his knees. “You will be staying here for a bit. I hope you don’t mind. We saved you from them, and we just want to do what’s best.”

The mouth of the girl did not move; it stayed transfixed, as though the cold from the room froze it in place – but Glion knew that this was not true. The girl had been given a shock treatment that paralyzed everything but a few fine motor functions. Speaking was not one of the functions saved.

“We will take very good care of you here. Now, you know that you aren’t completely out of the clearing yet, right?” He did not wait for an answer. “But you soon will be. We are working very hard at that here on the Falcotrix. So, you must go away for a little bit, but don’t worry. You will be free in a few months to, oh, a few years, okay?”

The girl’s eyes widened even more. Glion knew what she was thinking – years?

“You will be good as new, and then you will be able to live life as it was intended, free of harm and safe and with your family.” He pursed his lips. He wondered if she already knew that there were no detectable signs of life left in that city. That bastard destroyed everything to get to her. “Now, up you go.” And then he picked her up, and the girl’s golden blonde hair hung down to the floor like a waterfall. He placed her in a tubular bed and then smiled – he faked it, but it was a smile nonetheless. Then he pressed the button and a film of thin glass rotated around from the bottom of the bed and fell seamlessly in place, enclosing the child. His hand on the button, he thought about how the child would soon be free from the shock treatment; but that wouldn’t matter. By the time it wore off, she would be frozen in place, pristine, for she was lying in a cryochamber.

“Welcome, Number 3,” he said beneath his frozen breath and then pressed the button.