Read Beyond the Stars: INEO for Free Online

Then I heard a noise, too. Something was rustling through the brush in the fog. It sounded like it was coming our way.
    “Oh no, Sami. Look out! At your feet,” Azil said with alarm.
    I jumped back. “Ahh, get it off me, help!” I yelled so loudly it echoed off the trees. Great, I thought, here ends my off-ship excursion. I’m about to be eaten by a giant blue mama lizard.
    Gaelan grabbed me by the arm and pulled me towards him. I looked down to discover a ducklike creature sitting on my boot.
    “Scram, you.” I shook my right foot. It didn’t budge.
    Gaelan used his foot to push it off. The creature looked up at us curiously before it hopped away with remarkable speed.
    I exhaled in relief. “Don’t scare me like that, people. I thought I was going to die!” I said angrily and gave them all a mean glare.
    Gaelan crinkled his nose in disgust. “It’s too late. It already got you.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Gaelan grinned. “Your boot.”
    I checked for damages. Feeling no pain, I discovered it had pooped on my foot.
    He and the others laughed.
    “Great,” I said, trying to scrape the top of my boot against the grass to clean it.
    Azil came up next to me and whispered next to my ear, “Sami, you have to try and lighten up. Please, we need you to keep it together. Trust us. We’re not going to make you anybody’s lunch.”
    “Thanks. I know,” I replied, feeling humiliated for my outburst.
    Maybe they already regretted bringing me along. I knew that my emotional control was not as developed as theirs. However, I couldn’t control every reaction I had, no matter how hard I tried. Besides, the hot, stinky air was making me cranky, and I hated having to walk on the marshy ground. I was worried I would be sucked down at any minute. We continued to trek silently until reaching the building, occasionally being pelted with sprays of sideways rain being blown off the wet trees every time the wind picked up.
    It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the post. I tried not to overreact when I first saw the three story structure, though it was remarkable. It looked like a huge square fort that went on for blocks. The walls were made out of giant blocks of gray stone with small silver flecks that glimmered like twinkling reflectors in the daylight. Who or what cut the enormous pieces?
    Zaric removed a scanning device from his pocket and aimed it at the building’s immensely thick stone walls. We gathered around him and peered over his shoulder to look at the gadget’s screen. It displayed a gray picture highlighting the outline of blackened moving bodies inside the structure and had a running list of numbers and letters zooming down the left side of the screen.
    “It appears to be a good day,” Zaric said with delight. “See, Sami,” he brought it closer to my face. “It’s not enough to scan the perimeter for passing ships. There are over a dozen different species inside.” He tapped the screen to enlarge another region of the building. “We can check out the entire building. Normally, the picture is better.” He moaned to himself as he fiddled with the screen’s brightness. “But the post has a strong magnetic field that disrupts the image. However, we are still able to collect data on each of the starships inside and identify them. So far, the ship configurations are all different. It means the place is still accepting all kinds. No wars. Soon, we will know everybody inside.”
    After a few minutes of watching Zaric flick from screen to screen, Gaelan leaned over my shoulder, let out a sigh, and wiped the sweat off his brow. He appeared to be growing restless in viewing the endless data blinking before our eyes. “Zaric, can we go in yet? That thing is so slow. This pavement is scorching, the air reeks, and I’m getting too hot and pissed off to wait for the full scan.”
    Tyden covered his mouth and coughed. “I can’t argue with that.”
    Zaric smiled and licked his lips. “I was waiting to