Free Beyond the Stars: INEO by Kelly Beltz Page A

small flying ship that I liked to refer to as a flying car. I started to climb through the levitron’s open door to join them, only to be stopped.
    Gaelan grabbed me by the arm, pulled me back, and closed the door in front of me. The vehicle’s interior was quickly replaced with my own reflection on the window. I reached out my hand to touch the shiny glass in disappointment. “We’re not going with them,” he said. “They’re going to collect Tellurium while we talk with Loic and hopefully come to an agreement, before granting him a boarding pass.”
    “What if he says no? Are you planning on leaving him there?” I asked.
    “I don’t know yet. Let’s find out if he’s willing to help us first,” Gaelan said, and started walking towards the ramp of the landing as it lowered itself to the ground.
    “You’re heartless,” I said with disbelief that he would even consider abandoning someone.
    “Mm-hmm.” He turned and shot me an ornery grin to show me he was joking.
    Gaelan, Zaric, Noah, and I walked off the ship’s ramp onto Dalinova’s rocky surface. The climate was cold and breezy; I could see my breath, so I quickly lifted my hood to cover my head and ears. The only place I was chilled was my face and hands. I thought about turning around to ask Azil for a pair of gloves, but I didn’t want to seem like a wimp.
    It was nighttime with a black sky lit only by a small yellow moon and a few stars above. The golden moonlight reflected brightly across the stony ground and helped my eyes adjust to the lighting. There were rocky hills and small mountains all around us. It looked like we had landed in the middle of a huge quarry. Our feet sank into the ground’s powdery sand interlaced with jagged rocks. Not only did the loose dirt blow up when we walked, it made our gait unsteady with each step. I had to plan my moves carefully so I wouldn’t lose my balance and twist my ankle. I watched our levitron zip over our heads and land near a small mountain about one mile ahead.
    “Is there any water here? The ground looks like an old, dried up sea,” I asked Gaelan while I stopped to kick up the soft sand with my boot. I began to sink and had to quickly step onto a nearby rock to hold my weight.
    “The only water here now is far below the surface. Everything on top has dried up,” he explained.
    Then, as if on cue, we were struck by a brisk wind. It was loaded with sand and swirled around us like a mini tornado, spraying and ricocheting dusty grains of rock off our bodies. Blah. I wiped my lips after some dirt flew into my mouth. Luckily, it swiftly died down. I could imagine this was an ideal place to get caught in a sandstorm. My hands became numb, and my lip began to quiver from the cold. I tucked my fingers into the cuffs of my sleeves for protection.
    “Look, I see Loic. He’s waving to us,” Zaric said as he pointed towards the old mining rig in the distance.
    “Good. That was easy,” Gaelan said, sounding relieved.
    We walked up a steep mound of dirt to get to Loic. I focused my eyes on the old Katarian starship sitting behind him. The area was well-lit by several high lamp posts surrounding the rigs and campsite. The vessel was small, maybe two hundred feet long, only two stories high, with a strange fin off its back. It was clearly damaged. The top center of the ship had been blown off, leaving a gigantic gaping hole, dangling wires, crimped metal, and broken panes of glass and debris scattered across its roof.
    The site was littered with scattered tools, buckets, wheelbarrows, garbage, and miscellaneous piles of junk. It looked like a rundown trailer home, complete with an old bench sitting out front. The ship was also surrounded by several mounds of dirt that were probably the work of the giant rig that cycled up and down about fifty feet away. The machine would raise and rotate a conveyer belt of large buckets to deposit new scoops of dirt to the mound beneath it before lowering itself back into