• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• April 6, 2025

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 18)

Alloya Ra’non

Non- Conjugal Visits

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“Are you two ready?” I ask Aleti and Terra’rork. I look between the two of them, Aleti sitting besides me, and Terra’rork across from me.

“Sure am,” my daughter beams with raised chin.

“As I’ll ever be,” Terra tells me honestly.

“Remember, one of two things will happen,” I start to tell them. I take a pause to make sure the two of them are listening carefully. “Being that we’ll be the only Regamorphs and Techanot here, everyone might swarm us, interested to learn everything they can and cease our progress. That’s the better option, as strange as it sounds, because that means their friendlies. That said… 

“Don’t let this happen. If you feel you are talking to someone unimportant, or someone who’s just trying to scavenge information for anyone you don’t know — which is everyone — get away, find someone else.”

“Noted,” Terra confirms, right before asking, “what’s the other option?”

“That everyone has been trained and told to pay us no mind. Stop us from gaining any and all attention possible, maybe even attack us. This would be the worst out of the two options.” 

“We would be in big danger,” Aleti figures.

But she would be wrong. “No, then we would have to kill innocent people.”

“What?” Terra questions.

“We’re Guardians, not only that, you’re with me,” I remind tem, “no one is going to hurt the two of you if I’m here. They’ll be the ones who get hurt.” 

“Mom,” my daughter gasps.

“We’re not peaceful people,” I remind her, “we haven’t been this whole time, in all of our team’s history, that isn’t going to change if the people attacking us aren’t that strong. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to kill innocent people, but I’m not going to let anyone hurt the two of you. Odds are, if things get really bad, I’d have to break a few bones, I doubt everyone here is a trained combatant, but there’s always a chance.”

Terra remains quiet as he looks at his hands. “You worried about another Jeska Outpost?” 

The callback made me smirk. “That place was fucked up.”

I let the team get caught off guard, but the enemy today isn’t what we faced back then. But If I’m not careful, we’ll have the same outcome. All of our time and energy spent on this mission would be a waste. 

Then our large watercraft comes to a screeching halt. I ask the two of them, “Do you remember what information you are supposed to be asking for?” 

“Um,” Aleti starts mumbling. I begin to look at her with a face of anger causing her to stop pretending. While counting on her fingers she lists, “We’re here to find out about Womby and the upcoming Ruleden Tournament. Learning more about the ex-Prime Minister would be good too. It would be easier if this planet was connected to the Galactic internet.” 

“I don’t think Terrine would be the ‘ex-Prime Minister Terrine,’” Terra’rork adds, “more like deceased Prime Minister Terrine.”

“Are you sure?” Aleti asks in all seriousness. 

“Guys, have this discussion later,” I order them. “Now, we go to the party.”

Then I knock on my door and our driver opens the door for me just as the roof starts opening for Terra. As I start to move my foot to step out, Aleti puts a hand on my shoulder. She smiles and tells me, “I know I said this before Mom, but you look very pretty.”

“Thank you hon,” I tell her. Then I slip one leg out of the car feeling the night air hit it. In this underwater city, the temperature is machine simulated.

I step out into the dome city of Ranome, the capital of the Rivertan Powers.

I’m greeted by flashing cameras and Rivertan people yelling my name and moniker. This is an experience I have not had in awhile. 

The view of an underwater city at night is one that the people here can experience every night, but this is a once in a life time experience for me, Team Sunset even. 

On just about every Regnorian planet, you can’t see the stars, something about light pollution. Riverteria isn’t that different, with the light pollution stuff. But they can look up and see their crystal clear ocean over their heads. It’s an otherworldly kind of beauty, so the underwater plant life, and sea dishes floating in the shadows just overhead. Space is empty, but I’ve never found it boring to look out while I’m up there. This makes it look boring.

The flashing lights remind me though, that I’m not here for the sights. I dressed up for a reason, and I haven’t had to dress up this nice in a while.

I’m not one for dresses, I don’t get to go to many places where they’re appropriate, and I used to hate them when I was younger. Now, it feels nice to touch fabric that isn’t designed to save me from a stray knife of bullet. The simple black silk of the strapless dress was designed to go with my silver skin after some skin glitter made it shine. It wasn’t a very popular kind of makeup when I was Aleti’s age, but being shiny apparently was very in, or so she told me as she put it on my face.

Compared to the others, I still dressed rather simply, my dress wasn’t extravagant, but there’s only so far I’m willing to go.

Aleti steps out of the car right next to me, looking beautiful in a long red dress, which has her arms covered. She is definitely far more tame than I am. It doesn’t matter if this is a mission or not, she probably wasn’t going to suggest certain things when she was going to a political gathering with her mother. 

Techanot’s don’t really wear clothes unless for protection, mainly because their rock exteriors are generally thought of as their shell. For this night though we at least found a ceremonious cloak, which actually fit him this time. This dark blue cloak doesn’t cover his face at all, but it wraps around his shoulders and his back. 

Aleti thought the blue cloak clashed with his more tanish rock tone, but he liked the color so that was what he had made.

I pose for the flash of cameras before I start leading the three of us down the blue carpet to the Ranome city plaza. There’s an annual party was being thrown, and we made it back to Riverteria just in time.

Hideo TriVi Die-Ve Eron

“Do you think anyone will see us?” I ask Clay. 

We’re making our way, stealthily jumping one rooftop at a time, towards Ranome’s capital building of sorts. It’s where Ambassador Rizun EdiDi Ren-Den Wonton’s office was. He’s the representative for the Waverites here, and we’re about to go ask him to join the cause in Watree ascension, and overall Rivertan equality. 

Why wouldn’t he say yes? Equality is a much nicer word to say yes to than apartheid. 

“Probably not. It’s dark as shit over here with all the lights from the big party.” As he lands one foot on a roof only to instantly launch himself forward to the next, he reminds me, “I know you wouldn’t know this, but we’re pretty dark colored so we’ll blend with the night.” 

I try to understand that as best I can, but I have no frame of reference. 

“You know what?” I start to say. 

“Hmm?”

“It’s been a long time since we just had mission together, the two of us.”

“Guess it has been.”

“Haven’t had the chance to catch up with you….” I trail off.

I can hear Clay make that condescending ‘hmph’ noise when he smirks. He’s onto me. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

“I would like to say that I’m not one for drama, but that would be a lie.” It’s hard to hide a shit eating grin as big as mine. Who doesn’t find other people’s personal issues to be hilariously entertaining now and then? On the Rango, it’s all we have since we had to cut the cable line. “What’s up with you and Alloya? My romantic life has been in a locked box for a while. At least one of us needs to have something going on.”

“You’re telling me that in the last three years, nothing with you has have happened?” I think of Tizuki in that moment. I shake my head to try and rid my thoughts of her. Clay takes it differently. “Come on, seriously? Nothing? What have you been doing?”

“Helping people survive day to day. Helping out my family.” I haven’t spoken about them since I left, but I have thought about them. Lideo, Sizu and Eizu, I wonder how they’re doing, and Tizuki. Usually I would have told Clay about this stuff already like he told me about his mother, but we’ve been moving non-stop since we got back together. “My nephew, he got really hurt when Acoustica’s sun roasted the surface. I had to step up. No time really to find somebody, not even for a quick shag.”

“Hmm, we’re almost there, let’s stop here.” 

When he lands rather softly on a roof. Due to a lack of warning, I have to flap my wings so I don’t fly right into him.  

I ask him with a look of suspicion, “What’s the big idea?”

He sits and pats the seat next to him. “We haven’t just talked in a long time.”

“You want to now?” Clay picks the strangest times to do things, that’s supposed to be what I do.

“We’re the two fastest people in the galaxy, and we have all night to see Rizun,” he reminds me. He isn’t wrong. “What? You don’t want to talk to me?” 

I sense the sarcastic smile on his face.  

I return my devilish smile and sit down next to him. “I dunno, your daily life can’t be much more than brooding, whining, and punching.”

“Oh fuck you,” he says but he’s chuckling, “it’s not my fault that trashbin I call home doesn’t change.”

I’ve called my home planets a lot of things, but trashbin sounds a bit harsh, at least for a planet. “I would think most things don’t change much in three months, Earth might just need time.”

He drops his dead when his chuckle deepens. “True dat.”

“Well hopefully some things did get a bit better. Your mom, is she still….”

“Yeah, nothing’s changed.”

“Sorry for asking.” 

“Eh, someone has to be hopeful I guess.” 

“You’re not?” 

“I don’t know. I guess even if she does wake up, and somehow miraculously gets better, how do I even explain who I am to her? Our last conversation was years ago, and I didn’t turn into the fucking sun?” he asks me, the hint of a tremor in his voice. “I don’t think she would be very cool with how we do things, even if they are against bad people.”

We’ve had this conversation before, just last time there was another with us. “Just do what Jackal told us, don’t tell the ones you love what we do.”

“Hmm, I guess that’s the way to go. It’s just that…” Clay trails off as looks towards the sky.

“What?”

“Hideo, I’m sick of holding everything in! I just told Alloya the truth, and it didn’t go over well, but I still feel like a weight is off my shoulders,” he reveals with upward flailing of his arms.

“You actually told her? Well that explains why you two have been acting so weird! I guess it must felt good to tell her.” When Clay mentions him and Alloya my own mind starts to think of my own predicament back home. “Does it really feel that much better to have told her? Even though, and I’m assuming based on what you said, she didn’t love you back?” 

“Surprisingly it did. I was always scared that if she didn’t feel the same it would crush me, and for a while it did, but now? I just feel better, not about how it turned out, but my feelings themselves. I’m not embarrassed, or tense about it anymore I guess I’m saying,” Clay admits, halfway to putting back on a smile. 

If I spoke up like that… 

No, there’s a huge difference between Clay and Alloya compared to me and Ti… 

Both of them were friends without anyone else being dragged into a falling out. I don’t have the charity of walking out okay no matter what happens. 

“You’d feel better if you just told her,” Clay interrupts my thoughts.

“Huh? What?”

“You’d feel better if you were honest with whoever you’re thinking about right now,” he confirms.

“What? I’m not… It’s lot more complicated. Unlike you, I’m feeling for someone I can’t have, shouldn’t have,” I attempt to explain.

“Married woman?” Clay guesses correctly.

“How’d did you..?” I ask bewildered.

“Hideo, that’s headline is a porno in the making everywhere. Even still, I could be wrong, but if you tell her then maybe you-”  

“It’s my brother’s wife,” I blurt out.

“Oh,” Clay says as he stares at me. Then he turns his head forward. “Yeah, nevermind.”

“Yup.”

“Our prospects suck pretty bad don’t they?” Clay asks me.

“Big time.” 

“You know what? I lied before about ‘liking married women’ being a generic thing everywhere. It’s not generic with Regamorphs I bet. They don’t have marriage.” 

“Huh? Really? Why do you know that?” I ask.

“Well, when I was confessing my love in the terrible way that I did, I first found out that not only do Regamorphs lay eggs, they don’t even have kids with their ‘partners.’”

“I don’t even want to know how that came up.” I need to cringe about that today, so maybe later. “But they’re not mammals like us? Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have marriage.”

“I asked around about that afterwards,” Clay explains with his arms gesturing open. “Alloya told me she wasn’t a mammal, and how love, sex, and children are all separate from each other. I realized that I didn’t know anything that specific about Regamorphs, so I spent the last week on Noland reading about it like there was no tomorrow.”

“Huh, I bet a lot of women on our worlds would be very jealous to hear that Regamorph women don’t painfully give birth,” I joke with a loud snort.

“Better not tell them, they’d only hate us even more,” Clay points out.

I drop my head in my palms. “Ugh, you’re so right, keep this shit to yourself!” Clay starts laughing again, and then I can’t help but laugh. 

Then I sigh and admit, “Well, I’ve been about as real with you as I’m going to be. Want to go intimidate a government official?”

“Jesus, how long has it been since we last did that?” Clay asks with an expression that stresses to remember.

“I don’t know. I think it was when we ‘convinced’ that major to dip into his own pocket to fix a water problem in some town on…. I think it was Salendeana? A Regamorph colony right?”

“I dunno. It’s been awhile.”

“It’s been like a few months for you!”

“Hey, Humans are not known for our sense of memory.”

“You’re not known for anything,” I say before we went silent again. Then I comment, “We should probably get going.”

“Yeah,” Clay agrees.  

I launch off the roof before he does, that way to make sure he can’t stop for anymore touching, yet untimely conversations. 

Our target is right across this river, a river we cross in a single bound. When we land on the roof I decide that we should agree on a line of strategy.

“I’ll enter first to appear behind him, then you’ll appear in the window frame, creepy smiles and all.” In response he smiles and nods his head. “We want to intimidate and convince, then hit him with guilt to sink in the deal. Not necessarily terrorize or anger him…. yet.”

Clay clarifies that, “We don’t actually want to have to hurt him. I got it.”

“Well, if we were doing what we wanted…” 

“You’re terrible, now make sure he’s there.”

I do as I am told, and I let a little whistle come out, one that doesn’t necessarily chart the whole room, because that would give us away. This one just listens for heartbeats, and it reports back at least one. 

I smile, then in a flash, I turn myself partially into sound. My insides only, move quickly and fluidly without losing all of my clothes. I want to be creepy in a threatening way, not in a perverted way.

I blast through the window of Wonton’s office, swirling around all over, blowing around papers and what not. Also, yes, Waverites use paper, we read braille. I move like sound, which honestly looks like the wind or so I’m told, and get around the Waverite in the room. Before he can yell and scream I completely materialized and cover his mouth with my hand.

“Shhh,” I say to him and he tenses up.

Then Clay perches himself in the window frame likeI’ve shown him. One hand on the bottom frame, other hand on the other frame, and glowing eyes, I can literally feel the heat coming from them.

“Are you Ambassador Rizun Wonton?” Clay asks  as if he doesn’t know. Well, I guess, we didn’t, we could have been wrong. 

The Waverite nods his head. 

Assuring that we’re not.

“Good, this may sound like a redundant question, but do you know who we are?” Rizun nods again. “You’re not going to scream if Hideo here lets go of your face, are you?” Rizun shakes his head.

“Much appreciated,” I say as I take my palm off of his mouth. Thankfully, he isn’t one of those who licks the person’s hand to get them to let go. 

They’re gross.

“Uh-um, what are you doing here?” Rizun asks, obviously nervous as he clams up and brings his arms together to cower in fear. 

“Hopefully, we want the same thing,” Clay assures him. I let Clay play good cop, not that I can’t do it better, I just prefer bad cop. It’s much more fun. As Clay settles to stand on the floor, he continues to ask Rizun, “Can I call you Rizun?” 

“Sure,” Rizun answers nervously. 

“Good.” Clay proceeds to walk towards Rizun’s desk where he pulls aside a chair and sits in it, while also putting his feet on the desk. “Let’s not waste anytime. I’m sure you know what goes on here in Riverteria, between the Watree and the Riverti.”

Rizun starts out complicent, not really giving his piece as politicians do. Problem is, he isn’t a good politician… in the slightest. “It’s-uh, their way of life. It’s not up to us to—”

“Rizun, I’m gonna stop you there,” Clay says as he holds up his hand. He leans forward, taking down his feet. “I need you to be completely honest with me here. How do you really feel about what’s happening here?” Rizun takes a deep breath, and stays silent for a while. “I’m waiting,” Clay groans as he leans back into his chair.

Rizun kind of tilts his head, and burrows his forehead. I decide that maybe I should give him some incentive to answer, and I begin to raise my hand. Then I snap my fingers to let out a little wave.

“Ack!” Rizun squeaks as his body jolts. 

I warn him, “Don’t be rude, he’s being very patient with you, but maybe I won’t be, I have places I’d rather be.” In response to me mentioning him, Clay clasps his hands together and gave an disingenuously sympathetic look.

Then Rizun starts speaking, “Okay look, I don’t like this split between the Rivertans. My people and I, we see it everyday, we’re practically neighbors now!” Then he turns up to plead with me. “You have to understand, I can’t get involved. I need to do what’s right to keep our people safe. I can’t jeopardize or survival, at the small chance of helping out a people who don’t want to help themselves.”

That last part make Clay and I grin at the same time. Then Clay begins to respond, “See what if I told you the Captain has a plan for that. That all we want is for you to keep your people from getting involved when the time comes. That when the Watree-” 

Suddenly Clay stops talking, letting his grin fall slightly, and turns his head to face the door behind us. Then he stands up quickly which alarms both Rizun and me.

I immediately ask him, “What’s wrong?” 

“Someone’s here, someone’s coming,” he says in a hushed tone.

“It’s probably just someone from one of the offices, coming to work or get something,” Rizun reasons. He reaches out over the table as a gesture to quell Clay from going anywhere. “Do we need to drag them into this?”

“No one else stays this late but you, being the nocturnal animal you are. Everyone else is sleeping by now.”

Rizun becomes surprised. “How could you be so sure of that?”

“We watched you for the last week to know your work schedule. You and the secretary who won’t date you are the only ones who works this late.” 

People being here isn’t necessarily cause for this much alarm, what has Clay so pent up?

“There’s more, don’t keep it to yourself,” I tell him.

“There are too many for it to just be someone who forgot their keys. Two groups of five coming from both directions. They’re moving in unison.” Then Clay turns around to face me with a serious look on his face. “They’re going to be here soon.”

I shake my head and move from behind Rizun. I tell him, “Rizun, I strongly recommend that you come with us, because unlike whoever is coming, we need you alive. I’m willing to bet that these guys don’t.”

Clay reminds me, “We could just kill them,” as if I hadn’t thought of that.

“The Captain has gotten in trouble for less, let’s not do that… even if it would be fun.”

“Here that Skip?” Clay calls Rizun. I’m guessing ‘skip’ is an insulting name, maybe? “Turns out we’re here to save you, unless you want to run the risk that they’ve not here to kill or kidnap you.”

“Aren’t you here to kill or kidnap me?” 

“Kidnap? Yes, till tomorrow anyone. Kill? Nah, we’d just hold you in the brig if you didn’t co-operate and get whoever replaces you.”

“We might rought you up a bit if you fight us, but truly, the lasting impact will be on your paycheck.”

That threat makes him gulp.
“Please save me,” he chokes out.

Clay shakes his head as I start to hear the footsteps approaching the room. “What is everyone all about that money?” He holds his hand out and makes a small star. “Power feels like a much better deal than some dollar bills.”

“You’ll get it when you’re older.”

“You’re barely older than me.”
“But Waverite years are more than Human years so I’m like, twice your age.”

Rizun grabs my arm. “Please just save me,” he says, as he no doubt hears the guns clanking off the incoming soldiers.

“Of course,” I say as I toss him across the room at Clay. He screams, and still screams even after Clay catches him. 

The soldiers start racing towards us harder, but they’ll never catch us. Clay doesn’t waste more time before he leaps out the window, and I fly after him. He soars over the rooftops ahead of me as I fly to draw the attention of any sniper looking for Rizun, but if they’re smart, they’ll know better than try shooting a Guardian out of the—

PEE-YOOWW!!

I changed into sound to dodged the blaster that almost shoots through me. I guess they’re not as smart as they thought, or they thought that beam would hurt me while I was in my sound form. Maybe they thought I was Rizun. 

You know, I never did ask if Rizun was a different color than me. If we’re the same would a Regamorph fascist even tell the difference? 

Probably not, the racist bastards.

I look around for the sniper, but cosmic blasts don’t leave trails I can sense all that well. I could spend the time focusing, but that would waste a lot of time. 

Better question would be to ask… 

When the fuck did Rivertans get weapons that the Regnorian Republic uses?