Tika’s entire body hurt.

She didn’t know how long she was out, and how she managed to survive. All she knew was her entire body hurt, and the surface where she was lying down was incredibly uncomfortable. It felt like lying on shards of glass.

Dimly, she could hear someone calling her name. She couldn’t quite hear them, but she hoped they would stop. Their voice made her head hurt even more, it was incredibly annoying. She cracked her eyes slightly open, hoping that she could tell them off — but the first thing she saw made her words die in her tongue.

It was Varka — of course it was — and their face was filled with worry.

“Oh stars, you’re still alive!” Varka cried out, before helping Tika to sit up. Tika groaned out in pain, her head still felt like it was going to explode. But she forced herself to open her eyes wider and looked around.

They were on some kind of a dumpster — at least, Tika thought it was. Pile upon pile of dry wastes made up the view, and it smelled more musty than putrid. The lack of lighting made the place dark and eerie, but there was light coming from above.

Tika looked up to the towering heights that loomed above them, only to find that it was too bright for her eyes. She turned her gaze back down and blinked as her vision adjusted to the darkness.

“Where are we now?” she asked.

“A place called Larkis”, Varka answered. “That meant ‘Below’ in Anur Arta. It’s… some kind of a slum, I suppose.”

“A slum? You have that too?” Tika asked again.

Varka nodded. “We use it as temporary dumping ground before we recycle it. But, well… less than savory people began to move in and took over the place.”

Oh. Of course the utopia like the Mothership still had its dark side. Nothing was truly perfect in this universe.

“It’s best that we don’t linger. Those who live on Larkis dislike people from Above”, Varka said as she held Tika’s hand, guiding her down the garbage pile carefully. Sometimes they turned to her, as if checking on her, and she really wanted to tell them that she was fine and everything was alright. However, her head was still pounding, so she decided not to say anything. 

The two of them walked in silence.

Compared to how bright and lively Velrakaris was, Larkis was silent as a grave. Often she could hear the wind whistling between the garbage piles, but there was nothing else. The place seemed like it was completely barren of any sign of life, yet she could often see something move in her peripheral vision. They disappeared when she tried to get a closer look.

Shuddering, Tika moved even closer to Varka. She was afraid, she realized, and it was the first true fear that she felt since coming to the Mothership.

“How did we survive? It seems that we fell from such great height”, Tika said as quietly as she could.

“Flying boots”, Varka answered simply. “But they broke from the explosion. Fortunately for us, I still could use it to slow our descent.”

“Oh”, Tika hummed. “Thanks for saving my life again.”

Varka smiled kindly, but then their face turned serious. They raised her hand and stopped walking, and Tika followed suit. Fear gnawed in her chest, especially when Varka unsheathed their blade.

And then she could see them — purple glowing dots surrounding them. Those dots illuminated foreign, alien face, and that was when she realized that those dots came from the guns they held.

A pale green-skinned being stepped forward and growled something to Varka, who returned in similar fashion. Tika couldn’t understand what the two of them were saying, but she knew that it was not a pleasant chit-chat between friends. Sometimes, she could hear words like ‘Velandar’ and ‘Velrakis-Aran’, but she couldn’t understand what the context was.

Tika didn’t really know what to do in this kind of situation, being held at gunpoint by hostile extraterrestrial beings. She was unarmed and defenseless, and her only protection was Varka who was standing between them and the hostile beings before them.

Then, she could feel something touching her back, along with a whirr of something.

In a blink of an eye, Varka turned with a roar, and their sword sliced through a hand that was holding some kind of a gun. Green blood sprayed, and the being who lost one of his arms screamed out in pain. In one fell swoop, Varka kicked him away from Tika and picked up the gun that he dropped.

Laser bullets wheezed past from all direction, and Varka shoved Tika behind a pile of garbage while they fought off the people of Larkis. They shot the people of Larkis with deadly accuracy, all while dodging laser bullets aimed toward them with such agility that was near inhuman.

That was when she heard someone shouting. She turned and saw a hulking figure with pointy horn on his forehead rushing toward her. Tika rolled to the side just in time, and the horned man barrelled straight into the garbage pile where Tika was hiding behind. Debris rained down on the horned man, burying him alive, and Tika crawled away, her heart still beating hard in her chest.

She saw a gun lying on the ground, and she picked it up without thinking. Her aim was shaky, but she managed to shoot one of the Larkis people who was fighting against Varka. Varka turned toward her in surprise, giving her a smile that was a bit too feral, before jumping back into the fight.

Feeling more confident, Tika shot the gun a few times. Sometimes her aim went astray, but she managed to take down several Larkis people. She really tried not to think how she had killed, or at least maimed, a handful of people.

And that was when Tika realized that the Larkis people had separated her from Varka, and they had her surrounded and cornered.

It’s too late, she thought. Her back was pushed against solid steel wall, and she couldn’t even see Varka among the crowd and the garbage piles. She looked around, realizing that she was outnumbered. Her arm shook in exhaustion — the gun she was holding was heavy and its recoil was not helping at all. Even so, she still had her gun pointed against the Larkis people who had surrounded her.

If she had to die here, well… she would rather die fighting.

But Varka had another plan, it seemed. They dropped themself from a garbage pile to Tika’s right and landed between her and the Larkis people. Their uniform was torn and their hair a mess. On their cheek, a scar was still bleeding sluggishly.

“Shoot the wall behind you!” Varka ordered.

“What?!” Tika cried out, confused.

“Just do it!”

Tika did as she was told and shot at the solid steel wall. It took a couple hits, before the wall melted and a dark hole appeared before her. Without thinking twice, Tika entered the hole.

Varka followed Tika into the hole, before shooting at the beam above them. It fell down with loud clanging noises, blocking the hole before them, and preventing the Larkis people from following them. 

It was done. They were safe now.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Varka asked as they pulled Tika closer and examined her with intense eyes.

“I should be the one asking that”, Tika returned. “You’re bleeding.”

Varka touched their injured cheek and rubbed the blood away with the back of their hand. 

“I’m fine”, they said, before guiding Tika deeper into the darkness. Tika couldn’t quite see, but she could see Varka’s eyes glowing in the dark — and while that was kind of unsettling, she tried to reassure herself that this was Varka. She trusted them, and so she followed them anyway.

“Where are we?” Tika asked curiously.

“The maintenance tunnel”, Varka answered. “The tunnel system connected the cities inside the Mothership. This one leads to Dorvak.”

Ah, the third city in the Mothership. Tika only knew its name from the guidebook about Mothership Velrakis. Supposedly, Dorvak was a city where it was perpetually dark, to accommodate beings with innate photosensitivity.

“Once we reach Dorvak, we can contact the Royal Palace and Velrakis-Aran to pick us up”, Varka said. “Your colleagues must be worried.”

“I’m worried about the others too. I hope they are okay”, Tika returned.

What she didn’t say, was the probability that this attack would affect the exchange program with Mothership Velrakis. She really hoped that the exchange program would continue, but she also couldn’t deny the possibility that Commander Jonathan would cancel it. 

She really hoped it wouldn’t come to that — she might not see Varka ever again.

The thoughts haunted her until they exited the maintenance tunnel and into a dimly lit city. Compared to the brightness of Velrakaris, even at night, Dorvak looked gloomy. Even so, Tika could see colorful buildings stacked on top of one another.

Varka stopped in front of a store — at least, Tika thought it was a store. A colorful sign was hung above the door, and Tika wished she could read what was carved on it.

A Ndalu was sweeping in front of the store, and he greeted Varka politely when the two of them approached him.

“Please wait here”, Varka said, before he and the Ndalu entered the store.

Tika leaned to the store wall while turning her attention to various beings walking around the busy street. They chattered in languages that Tika couldn’t understand, and once again she wished she could understand them.

Her eyes caught purple glow in her peripheral vision and she jolted out of her musing. But when she turned, expecting more attack, she saw that it was some children playing with some kind of a glowing ball in front of a store. They sulked when the owner of the store scolded them, but they walked away, still tossing and juggling the ball between themselves.

Varka walked out of the store not long after, and Tika found an odd expression on their face.

“What’s wrong?” Tika asked, steeling herself for whatever bad news she was about to hear. Varka frowned, grief clear on their face.

“Your colleagues… none of them survived”, they said. 

Tika blinked, before she ran their words in her head once again. She couldn’t understand… She had to be mistaken, because— because her colleagues—

“Somehow a few Larkis people went Above and attacked them all. Avamar is fine, the Larkis people didn’t attack her. But the others…” Varka paused, choking. “I’m so sorry, Kartika…”

It was the first time Varka used her name, but Tika couldn’t hear it— didn’t want to hear it. Because if she heard it… that meant what Varka said was true. Professor Arga, Professor Ratri, Indah, and Bayu… even Commander Jonathan too… 

Before she knew it, tears rolled down her cheeks. She could feel Varka pulling her close and hugged her so carefully, as if she was made from glass. The gentleness made Tika’s resolve break like a dam, and she sobbed into Varka’s chest.

“I’m so sorry”, she could hear Varka say. “I’m really sorry.”