Designed Destiny

11. Dark Thoughts

Planet: Troy

Helen widened her eyes in disbelief, feeling utterly overwhelmed at the sight of the world looming before her viewport. There was a colossal gate that created a belt cinched around the planet covered dazzling scarlet oceans and diamond white continents of land, the moons of Troy were all gathered in a spiraling circle that rose beneath the mighty world.

The gate itself was made of golden oscillating cogs, escape wheels, and barrels as if it were fashioned from the organs of a clock. The dark blood-orange sun was directly behind Troy, casting an amethyst solar eclipse upon the world, fiery bands of silver-violet light lapped aggressively at the fringes of the foreign planet, icy blue stars illuminated the inky black void of space as the onyx Spartan spy vessel crept closer.

Leda had been able to smuggle Helen out of their overcrowded palace by dressing her as a servant and had Clytemnestra guide her sister downstairs while their mother braved the mob of savage mortal-creatures to create a distraction as Nestra took Helen to the hanger. Helen had been able to slip away in the Spartan's elite spy craft; it was virtually undetectable on scanners and was completely invisible to the naked eye once it was within the throes of outer space. Helen was then completely alone; she didn't even have any Spartan android servants aboard with her. Unfortunately, there hadn't even been time to pack a knapsack so she was still in her ceremony suit and furry white cape to keep her swan wings hidden; although technically if she wanted them gone, that could have been arranged too. There seemed to be no defining end to Helen's abnormalities: she was a feature shape-shifter.

She had complete control over the various animal features her body could morph into. Sometimes when she wanted to see miles away she'd transform her eyes into golden eagle eyes, or if she needed to hold her breath underwater she'd swap her raptor eyes out for a set of emerald gills beneath her jaw, or if she needed to hear through walls; wolf ears, cut herself out of a tricky tangle; panther claws. The possibilities were virtually endless however she could only summon one at a time and the option of not having any animal features was non-existent. For some reason, her swan wings were the most natural and comfortable for her. Maybe that was because she was born that way, according to Leda the family found Helen as a baby completely swaddled up in her own snowy white swan wings.

Suddenly the mighty gates around the imposing planet began to open. She softly gasped in alarm and leaned farther back in her chair as the cog wheels slowly spun, clasps unlatched and both sides of the ring elevated upwards, looking like a concave pair of thin wings rising on opposite sides of the planet. The display was so menacing, Helen fought the urge to pilot her craft away from the looming gates, but instead drew a deep breath and shakily leaned forward on the guidance-bars. Her vessel zoomed through the opening and emerged through the cloudy atmosphere.

Mirror-plated single-pilot star-runners zipped through the darkened fuchsia sky to be on either side of the Spartan ship, Helen struggled to peer into the cockpits but even their view-shields were reflective. She nervously followed their lead and eventually cut through the cloud cover and was soaring high above the crashing oceans of blood red waters, dolphins lunged out of the waves like eager spectators, their enormous iridescent rainbow flippers shimmering in the dim light of the hidden sun briefly before they dove back under the surface.

The ocean gave way to a sparkling shoreline that looked like it was made of crushed diamonds, creating a kaleidoscopic wave of light glistening upon the ground. The beaches emptied into a lavish expanse of tall tawny meadows and then, rising out of the fields, was a snowcapped mountain; seemingly chiseled out of the mountain's face was the Trojan royal palace. Helen's ship landed on the hanger that was essentially a ledge on one side of the mountain high above the castle, her escorts leaped out of their vessels and joined the crowd of other Trojans awaiting her appearance on the hanger ground.