Octave of Stars Theme Song:
Welcome to the serial version of Octave of Stars! Episodes will release every Monday and Thursday. If you’re finding this story for the first time, be sure to start at Episode 01 for maximum comprehension, or check out The Index for all available Episodes.
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Azalea ran the rest of the distance down the hallway, noticing the difference in her pace when she wasn't being pulled along in Gayle's wake. "Alright," she said to herself, "you can do this, girl. Do your best and trust in God's will, right?" The confidence in her voice betrayed her fear.
Around the corner was a cross junction; she crouched behind one corner of the walls, using a plastic compass to decide which would be the best way to go. As she worked, she continued to murmur to herself. "Saint Joan of Arc was only sixteen when she did her thing, right? And she had to take on an army… But she wasn't really alone either. Okay." Azalea pocketed the compass, then got the Miraculous Medal from around her neck and gripped it, closing her eyes in prayer. "Blessed Mary, use me too, like you did Joan, and Bernadette, to accomplish more good in the world, amen." She imagined Mary walking into the garden of her soul, a blue watering can with a fleur-de-lis on it, and watering her heart-flower gently. She opened her eyes, fortified by this spiritual reassurance, leaving the medal outside her shirt.
She jogged onward, keeping a steady pace to not tire herself out too quickly, scrambling around corners and through doorways. A low padded bench had been placed sideways across the hallway, which was a lazy barrier meant to slow her down. But it wasn't able to fulfill its purpose, as Azalea leaped and vaulted over it.
A guard who might have been in his forties stepped out of the nearby office and yelled for her to stop, raising a tranquilizer gun. Azalea made it harder for him by twisting around in mid-air and launching a spinning pumpkin at his head, landing and skidding backward from the momentum. The dart landed safely in the vegetable instead of in her. The guard sidestepped the oncoming projectile, but into the couch, losing his balance. Azalea smirked as she darted around the corner.
There was the end of the hallway, with the precious elevator doors ahead. Pressing onward, she pulled up again as the ceiling tiles popped open one by one and little squadrons of aerial robots formed up in front of her. "Just great," she said. "If I go back I'll run into someone in the wrong direction, I just know it. But that's alright." She rotated her slingshot out of the way and pulled out two black pointy seeds, one in each hand, as well as several more thin brown ones that were almost like splinters.
"Bernadette, Thérèse, Joan," she prayed, "you girls have got my back now." She sprouted the thin seeds, throwing up clouds of yellow and orange petals into the air. The robots were drawn to the movement and flew forward. Two long, stout leeks appeared in her hands, green from tip to root. She darted into the fray.
Azalea swatted a drone to the ground with one leek, then swiped upward and sent another into the ceiling. "My grace is sufficient for you!" she recited.
Two more came from either side and she struck downward in an arc. "For power…"
She blocked a whirling set of blades with one thick leek and whacked two drones together with the other. "Is made perfect…"
One drone was holding steady, ignoring the petal cover, a dart ready to fire. "In weakness!" She threw a leek at it, smashing it into the wall with the spinning vegetable.
She palmed another black pointy seed, a small green watermelon landing on the floor, the vine still held in her hand. This became a spinning flail to strike down the last few robots that blocked her path to the door. One remained whirling in midair, no sign of action, so she tossed the watermelon aside as she walked to the elevator, stepping over the wrecked devices. This movement was enough to trigger something, as the last flying contraption shot a small dart that pricked Azalea in the leg.
"Ouch!" she said, pulling out the thin needle and dropping the robot with the other leek. "So rude." She pressed the elevator button and waited for it to arrive, getting into position on the wall in case someone was riding along.
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It had been such a long time since Gayle had gone on a mission solo, it was surprising to her how fast she could move when she didn't have to make sure Azalea was keeping up. Like right then, when she had to backtrack from the shuttered hallway, and re-encountered the trio of Black Hole troopers who had been chasing them earlier. Two were missing their fancy boots and one had shed his helmet, but they raised their batons and shields when they saw her. She charged directly at them, causing the ginger-haired guy without a helmet to lose his nerve and cringe. Gayle glided on a current of air right over their heads; the two who still had guts took a swing, but one accidentally struck the helmet of his neighbor, issuing a shower of sparks.
Gayle landed and continued to sprint back down the hallway, glad she had strapped her backpack down so tightly, hoping her cargo was properly secured still. She burst into the atrium where several more guards had gathered, but she ignored their shouts to halt and spun around, shooting upward toward the ceiling. A handful of armed fellows patrolled the skybridge, but she couldn't blow them down without risking a nasty fall if they couldn't grab the railing in time. Up there she was also an easy target, and several tranquilizer guns were trained on her now. She switched to defense, moving around the air within arm's reach in a whirling shield. And it was good she did, one young guard took a potshot at her before being scolded by his tall partner that Mr. Frost would be furious if she was tranquilized while still in the air.
She had a good chuckle at this and sailed forward, to the end of the bridge Azalea had recommended they visit before. As she got closer to a solid surface, some darts flew her way, but got thrown to the side by her air screen. Blowing past the rank of guards who stood around the benches at the end of the bridge, she landed and sprinted into the next corridor. Her memory of this place was still strong, if she wasn't totally mistaken she was getting pretty close.
The portal out of the atrium went right or straight ahead, so she ran head on. Gayle reminded herself she had to stay alert, she couldn't fall now, not when so much was on the line. So many people were depending on her, but Lumina's reassurance comforted her. She didn't have to do it alone. Not only her allies in the building, free and otherwise, but also the help she could rely on from higher up. Psalm 124 echoed in her ears as she sped onward: Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers, the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
The hallway turned sharply to the left, and she saw the fowlers straight ahead. An open room with a low ceiling that looked to be a cafeteria or other gathering place was before her, and a cadre of guards had overturned tables to use as barriers, training tasers and dart guns over their cover. "Stand down!" one of them shouted. "Put your hands over your head or we will fire!"
Gayle furrowed her brow as the final verse came to a crescendo: Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. She quickly took a deep breath, then emptied the room of the air, drawing it into a ball in front of her, which vibrated with the extreme pressure. Every one of her aggressors clutched their throats instead of their weapons, metal and plastic clattering to the floor. Gayle quickly jogged around the barricade, unable to jump without anything to push her, and no one willing to stop her without a breath to animate them. Around the other side, she checked the room for any more problems, pausing for a few seconds.
The ball of the room's air wiggled under her grasp, fighting to escape as the force became greater. She closed her eyes, praying for every member of the squad in front of her, and the rest of those she had encountered so far. She literally held their life in her hands, which was a compelling, sobering thought. Her anger had once led to disaster, but she didn't feel that way now. She felt sorry for the guards, they were just feeding their families. Who was she to pass judgment on them? Only the Lord could do that. But still, she had a responsibility.
Gayle mouthed the next words, no one could hear her, even herself. Everyone's gonna survive this storm. She raised her hands and released the sphere, which flattened out across the room in an instant. She rode the burst, letting it carry her backward as she flipped around to face forward. The roaring wind pushed the barricade from the rear, sending guards and tables sprawling out across the polished floor. She let out her own breath before turning the next corner.
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"Any sign of them?"
"Nope, not yet. It's like they disappeared."
"They're not Light Stars."
"No, I said it's like they disappeared."
"Oh, sorry."
"Even if they were, our helmets would stop them too. The glass darkens when exposed to extreme light."
"Huh, I didn't know that. I knew about the flashlight on the side for blackouts…"
Two Black Holes rolled slowly down the hallway, checking left and right in case they came across a tall blonde lady or a young girl dressed in green and brown. Their batons were turned off, in case they accidentally bumped the other, their knees bent as their tread boots carried them forward. Each one's voices were distorted via the speakers in the exterior of their helmets, ready to switch on their air supply at a moment's notice.
"Nothing here but plants and windows. We only have fifteen minutes to clear the next floor…"
"I know, I know, I don't wanna end up like Roberto. Did you hear what Commander Juliet did to him for ruining his helmet?"
"Yeah, he'll be hating life for a while. Just stick to protocol and you'll be fine."
Their voices drifted off down the corridor with the sound of their treads. Once they were well out of sight, one of the aforementioned plants rustled, a bushy ficus, and a girl with dark skin wearing a frog beanie stepped out from behind it. Upon her releasing it, the thick leaves sprang upward, back to their original configuration, revealing a skinny stem coming out of the pot that was too small to conceal even her.
"Thank you very much, sir or madam," Azalea said to her conspirator, touching a leaf and bowing, then smiling as pink flowers bloomed out all over its branches. She kept moving down the hall, confident her destination was close at hand.
Azalea peeked around a pair of vending machines. She could see the windows from here, and was pretty sure she was on the south side of the building, as the wall nearest her had no such windows at all. "That means the entrance to the holding cells—" She clamped her mouth shut, afraid her thoughts coming out loud might give away her position. Instead, she heard a radio crackle to life nearby.
"Commander, reporting in from the lab rooms. No sign of the intruders."
"Roger that," said a stern feminine voice. "Any sign of Chief Stonearm or Senior Officer Yin?"
"Yes ma'm, they reported in at the lobby a few minutes ago."
Azalea suppressed a gasp, but moving her hand up to her mouth caused her slingshot to bump against the side of the vending machine, producing a definitely audible clang.
"Who's there?" the lady called, and Azalea heard a familiar whirring noise coming closer. Quickly deciding it would be better to surprise her opponent, Azalea popped out from behind the machine and let off two potatoes in quick succession, her eyes widening as she saw who she was up against.
Commander Juliet of the Black Hole Squadron was not as physically imposing as the others in her company because her feminine stature, but she made up for it with the special equipment she wielded. Her shield required two hands to hold; it was as tall as herself, and didn't lack for offense with the twin stun prods that crackled on either side. She ground forward on her tread boots, easily holding her position as both vegetables bounced off of her defense.
"There you are," she snarled. As close as Azalea was, she could see through her helmet and the beauty mark on her cheek. As the girl thought quickly of what kind of plant might help her out here, Juliet acted faster and squeezed a trigger, causing the black center of her shield to erupt with strobing, multicolored lights. Azalea was literally stunned, gawking at the spectacle, something in her brain was shutting down and refusing to let her run away. If she hadn't already been holding some marigold seeds, she might not have had the fortitude to throw them in front of her in a spray of orange and yellow, breaking the device's hold on her long enough to get her arm up over her eyes and flee.
"Come back here!" Juliet roared, speeding after the retreating girl. The hallway was narrow, Azalea didn't have much room to maneuver, but this floor also had a larger amount of office greenery than others. She ran up to another woody ficus and darted behind it, grabbing hold of the trunk and shoving power into it. The stout plant issued forth hard branches at her approaching opponent, which delayed her long enough for Azalea to jump on top and run along the length of the new growths, vault off Juliet's head, and dash back the way she had come. Juliet reversed her course, rolling away from the overgrowth, watching her quarry turn a corner through the camera in the back of her helmet. It took her a moment to turn around with the tread boots, but then sped forth all the faster. By the time she reached Azalea's last position, the local flora had become a thicket of branches and vines that crossed the hallway and made Juliet reconsider her initial decision to charge through. But she did, relying on the weight and power of the boots to carry her over the twigs and sticks covering the floor.
Even slowed down by this, Juliet closed in quickly on the other vending machine. Azalea knew the light stunner thing would be the end if she couldn't disable it somehow. Saying another prayer, she whipped around her cover and blind-fired a pinch of tomato seeds, hoping at least one would hit its mark.
"Nice try, girl," Juliet taunted, and Azalea grimaced. She pressed against the wall behind the machine, but there was enough space between it and the wall that she could see down the hallway, and what she saw made her grin with delight.
Azalea pulled her beanie over her eyes, then jumped out and shot a nice big pumpkin which sailed right over Juliet's head.
Juliet smirked as she activated the strobe projector. "Come on, is your aim that bad?" she sneered.
"Nope, it's great," Azalea said, grinning under the brow of her hat. She pointed generally forward. "And so is hers."
A gust of wind whipped the leaves on the surrounding branches. Juliet checked her rear camera again and tried to duck, but the pumpkin careened back down the hallway and planted itself squarely in the back of her helmet. She toppled to the floor shield first. Gayle landed and grabbed up her arms to cuff them, but Juliet wasn't about to give up yet, struggling mightily against her fate.
"Little help here," Gayle said, and Azalea uncovered her eyes. She grabbed a branch, helping by entwining the fallen trooper's legs and arms with greenery. Gayle finished incapacitating her with plastic, and Azalea added another layer of wood just to be safe. Gayle pulled off Juliet's helmet to deprive her of her radio. Azalea could see her short blonde hair highlighted with red.
"You'll never make it back out," she threatened. "We'll stop you, you'll see!"
Gayle stood up, brushing off her hands. "Sounds like you need a nap, missy. Hey, how about some help?" She pulled out a tranquilizer dart from her jacket pocket.
Azalea saw it and stepped forward. "Want me to get that?"
"Naw, I'll be careful." Gayle gently pricked Juliet in the back of the neck, which brought on sleep in moments.
With the last opponent subdued, Azalea's excitement increased. "We did it!" she yelled, running up and embracing Gayle around the waist. "I can't believe it, that was so awesome, I don't think I've ever run that far in my life, it was just so crazy, and then you were gone, and then you were here, and I just can't even—"
"Yeah, we did," Gayle said, holding the girl tight as she vibrated with excitement. "Thank you Jesus. Now let's go finish the job, huh?"
Octave of Stars is currently airing on Substack for free, with two of the 45 total posts per week. It’ll be fully released at the end of April 2024. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can get the entire story right now, in either Ebook or paperback. Every purchase supports the ZMT Books mission of family-friendly entertainment.
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