A New Beginning

Chapter 61

Tasha's POV:

I yawned, glad that we had finished checking our last spaceship for the day. Taureen began walking towards the main park.

"Are you at the park yet?" I asked Keegan.

"Almost there."

I rested my head on the edge of Taureen's shoulder pad; it wouldn't be long before I would see Keegan. Once the children went off to play, we could wander away for some quiet time. Finding time with no one else around had become much harder after we had kids, and it only made us realize how much we missed the ability to simply curl up and snuggle by ourselves.

A distant siren made me lift my head and search for the source with narrowed eyes.

"Is it coming from one of the spaceships?" I asked Taureen, who had also stopped and turned around to regard the distant spaceships high in the sky above us.

A blossom of yellow and orange flames erupted from the bottom of the largest spaceship. I jumped to my feet, staring up at it with wide eyes.

Before I could even ask another question, Vick was checking his wrist comm. "They have no idea what's going on. It's a Brult ship. They never transport weapons or dangerous materials."

Taureen began searching for information on his own wrist comm. "Soranto and Tessa either just finished checking that ship, or they were still onboard. The emergency crews are already on their way-"

I tuned him out while desperately calling, "Tessa! Are you alright?"

My blood ran cold as it bounced back. She was either unconscious, heavily sleeping, or dead – and I had no way of telling which.

"My calls aren't going through!" I cried, letting Taureen and Keegan hear.

"I can't reach her either!" Keegan replied, equally as frantic. He would be able to see the spaceship as well I could. Aeria and the two guards would be getting updates just as quickly as Taureen and his two companions.

Taureen was rapidly typing something into his wrist comm. "The shuttle they took up hasn't returned. Soranto isn't responding to my calls either."

He turned and began running back towards the main port building. My claws dug into his shoulder pad as I hung on and hoped that my daughter was alright. The flames had disappeared, and shuttles from the port below were rocketing up toward the ship. More shuttles were dropping out of the spaceship – and promptly disappeared.

I shared the mental image of the dozens of small, vanishing shuttles with Taureen, adding my feelings of confusion while trying to control the panic I was feeling. The Kymari's invisibility cloaking technology was nothing new to me, but I had never seen them use it on a shuttle. It seemed very dangerous to cloak so many ships when at least a hundred rescue shuttles were rapidly closing the distance.

Taureen glanced up at the distant shuttles. "Those aren't Kymari vessels."

"They might have had hitchhikers," Vick said, glaring daggers at the scene above.

"I saw at least thirty before they disappeared. That is a lot of people and supplies to hide." Taureen replied shortly.

"It's a cargo ship." Tran retorted. "Three-quarters of their space is full of supplies and hiding places."

We were forced to slow down as we got closer to the building due to the sheer number of people also coming to help. Many were carrying weapons or heavy-looking bags. Smaller shuttles whizzed through the air above, landing near the building and letting more Kymari out. I kept trying to reach Tessa by the mindlink, but still couldn't get through.