Twenty-Seven

                                    

                                          
Just and FYI- I've posted another Kiran ( Kaldur) story, called "Eclipse". In case you wanted more of Kiran (and Kaldur) ;)
                          
At least the site was abandoned.
                          
We all breathed a little bit easier when the bioship couldn't detect any radio activity or humans for miles. There was a man-made opening, the doors blasted off some time ago, on the side of a cliff in the middle of the desert. We landed the bioship just inside.
                          
"Last time we were here, this place was crawling with Bialyans," Bumblebee recounted with a shudder.
                          
"Guess this base wasn't much use to Queenie and her worker drones if we knew about it," Kid Flash mused, speeding back and forth through the cavern-turned-runway strip.
                          
"That's what we thought before the last time we came here," Karen bit her lip, studying the cavern around us.
                          
"Come on," Bumblebee waved the rest of us after her, "The carvings are this way."
                          
We quickly followed Karen. No one wanted to be here for too long. 
                          
Bumblebee stopped in front of a giant relief scuplture of a scarab beetle, reaching from the floor where we stood on a raised dias to the ceiling of the cavern. Hieroglyphs in some form of ancient egyptian surrounded the sculpture, carved in columns from floor to ceiling, and I briefly remembered Blue Beetle mentioning something about "his" scarab. Did that have anything to do with these carvings?
                          
"Miss Martian, you have the psychic link up?"
                          
Miss Martian nodded silently, and a tapping sensation errupted at the back of my mind. I let her in, but a uneasy feeling of distrust setled at the back of my mind. I couldn't tell if it was my own distrust of her, or her distrust of me. I swallowed.
                          
"Solstice, Miss Martian. You take the right side. Kid Flash and I will take the other side," Bumblebee instructed.
                          
"Wait, what?" I was momentarily confused. Karen hadn't missed how much Miss Martian didn't seem to like me, did she? Before I could ask to switch, even Bart would be better than M'gann, Bumblebee had shruk and Kid Flash had run off, leaving me with a stone-cold Miss Martian. Well, there was no time like the present to get to know each other better.
                          
We stood around awkwardly for a moment, neither of us wanted to say anything to each other, but we had to figure out where we were going to start with this wall of hieroglyphs.
                          
"Well," I started, "there's the sign I saw earlier."
                          
The symbol for "Rama" seemed to reflect the glow from my tattoo as I lightly floated over. Surprisingly, Miss Martian followed after me.
                          
"Can you interpret anything else?" Miss Martian asked, strictly professional.
                          
I ran my tongue over the tip of my teeth, "I'm not as good as my parents at interpreting, and this is a vastly different dialect than the one I've seen them use."
                          
Though she was the telepath, I could still sense her disappointment. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try." I insisted. 
                          
I ran my hands over the other icons, tracing them as if that would impart their ancient knowledge upon me. 
                          
"Rama...battle...monster...gods...Rama..." I whispered under my breath.
                          
"Battle, destiny, destruction, kingdom, Rama, door, open-"
                          
Laughter shrieked from somewhere behind me, and I jumped.
                          
"Did you hear that?"
                          
"Hear what?" Miss Martian asked.
                          
I slolwy looked around. Lightbulbs installed by the Bialyans flickered overhead. I couldn't see anyone besides the two of us.
                          
"Bumblebee, did either of you laugh just now?"
                          
"What do you mean, Solstice?" Karen asked.
                          
Laughter, again. I looked around. Something flickered in the corner of my eye, dancing down the hall that led to the Bialyan's former computer room.
                          
"Solstice!" Miss Martian shouted as I ran after it.
                          
What had I read?
                          
I skid around the corner, hearing a tiny child's laughter echoing off the stone as tiny feet pitter-pattered up the stairs.
                          
"Oh my gosh," I gasped. A lump grew in my throat and my stomach churned as I ran after them.
                          
"Kiran, what the heck are you doing?" Karen asked.
                          
"Wait for us, at least!" I ignored Karen and Kid Flash, flying up the stairs as I tried to follow after the strange child. What was a kid doing wandering in the middle of the desert all by themselves?
                          
"Wait!" I begged, just like my teammates were for me.
                          
The hall, framed in a perfect ractangle, was a bit of a sudden change from the loose geometric walls carved out of stone, but the biggest shock was the child framed in a soft halo of light from the one working bulb at the end of the hall.
                          
Her skin was as brown as my own, though her black hair was short and curly, stopping at her shoulders. She wore a loose white tunic over the henna painted up and down her arms, and she grinned at me with a dot in the center of her forehead, as red as blood.
                          
"Namaste, Kiran," She smiled brightly, hands folded just so in front of her chest.
                          
The name hardly escaped my throat. 
                          
"Kamala."
                          
The light illuminating her flickered, and when it returned to it's regular brightness, the girl was gone. 
                          
"Solstice!" Bumblebee screamed, buzzing up to my ear. She grew to her full size, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. "what were you doing, running off like that! We're a team, we stick together!"
                          
Kid Flash appeared at the top of the stairs next, eyes wide and curious. Miss Martian was behind him, shaking her head in disappointment, but what else was new?
                          
"I- I thought I saw a Bialyan. I didn't want them to tell Queen Bee that we were here." I lied.
                          
Bumblebee bit her lip, trying tob decide if she believed me or not. 
                          
"Did you get the photographs of your part of the wall?" She asked Miss Martian.
                          
"Yes."
                          
"Then we're going. I'm not taking any chances."
                          
A frown flickered across Kid Flash's mouth, but it disappeared as soon as it came.
                          
Please forgive the long wait and the short update.