by A. K. DuBoff
“I have no interest in joining your freaky cult!” she spat back as she ran. She morphed between her standard and Robus forms, ever-changing to prevent them from getting hold of her again.
“But don’t you want to be part of something more? We can see into your mind—your heart. You are able to connect with other minds in a way that no one else of your kind can. You’ve always been alone, despite the bonds you’ve convinced yourself are enough. But we see it—we sense how you want to be part of something bigger than yourself.”
“Don’t you get it?” She scoffed in her mind. “I am part of something bigger than myself. The Guard, the friends and family I have, the love of my partner—having those things does make me more than what I am on my own. I don’t need to kill and dominate others to achieve that.”
“You’re so restricted! They are weaker than you. We made you something more, and yet you continue to answer to them.”
“They’re my friends. I continue to work with them because I care about them and the rest of the people in the Taran Empire. Personal sacrifice is what allows our people to prosper as a community.”
She reached out her mind toward the Trols, probing to see what fueled them. The hate, the anger, the need to possess—it had to have come from somewhere.
The emptiness swirled in the ethereal space that existed between her mind and the collective consciousness of the ship. Looking at it cohesively, she could sense the disparate parts that Jasmine had picked up on in her digital analysis. The hundreds of Trol nests were striving for the same thing; ironically, that goal was to separate.
Kira tried to understand the underlying motivation. Her quest for inner truth was what had made her so effective at her job in the past, looking into people’s minds to identify what drove them. Appeal to that inner desire, and the person was hers to command.
As she looked into the collective mind of the Trols, though, it was strangely empty. The thirst for pain that fueled them permeated every thought, but beyond that… there was a void.
To her surprise, her heart softened.
This thirst for pain wasn’t driven by a fundamental, biological need; it was a reflection of what they already felt—isolation, loneliness. They sought to prolong that state of being because they no longer remembered another way to live.
“How did you get to be so bitter?” she asked them. “Why do you seek out pain while others of your kind thrive on love?”
“There is no other way!” the chorus screamed.
Kira understood now. She had seen their inner self. This group was angry and bitter at the universe—essentially, immature teenagers acting out at the worlds. They were dissatisfied with their own existence, having not yet come into their own, and so they sought to make others suffer, and be a part of their own perceived suffering.
She felt sorry for them, to have stooped to that level. Such an ancient, powerful race could have been so much more, but hubris had been their undoing. Power, ambition… though their intentions came from a place of self-improvement, they were blinded by a singular focus on dominance.
To thrive, one needed to understand the larger context of their actions.
Examining the Trols made Kira appreciate that much more what the Taran Empire had done. To bring together so many different people who could have been enemies was one of the greatest accomplishments in the galaxy, across all time. It was a foundation from which they could grow toward a future with greater equity and justice.
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?” she asked them. “This is your last chance to stand down.”
“If you won’t join us, then you will die with the rest!”
Kira never took death lightly, but she readily acknowledged it was a part of war. And right now, it was her duty to stop the war with the Trols before it claimed more innocent lives.
She broke the telepathic connection with the Trol collective. Driven by her desire to return to her loved ones, she sprinted toward the exit.
As Jasmine had promised, the corridor was a straight shot. The question was if the shuttle would be waiting for her at the end.
Jasmine announced.
Kira’s heart skipped a beat.
The map in Kira’s mind updated with a blue line tracing through a series of corridors on a zig-zagging incline, with one notable exception.
Considering that she didn’t have an alternative idea, Kira followed the new course.
She retraced her steps down the broad passageway, and then took a sharp right down a narrower passage into the chamber with the vertical shaft in the middle. The area beneath the shaft was covered with an especially thick patch of the spongy fibers.
Kira frowned.
Until they were right in front of her, there was no point in worrying about what may or may not be around the next bend.
She looked up at the shaft, four meters above her.
Kira drew a deep breath.
She took six rapid strides toward the shaft, pushing off with her legs on the final step. She launched into the air toward the opening.
The stone was barely within her grasp. She extended her arm and thrust her claws into the stone. As she made contact, her momentum carried her past her mark, causing her claws to slip.
She swung her other arm upward and plunged it into the stone to steady herself. However, the field around her slowly began to disintegrate the stone, and she slid downward.
Only four centimeters remained between Kira’s claws and the bottom of the shaft.
Her downward slide slowed, but didn’t stop completely.
She looked down.
Looking upward, Kira realized how far fifty meters was.
Kira raced up the vertical rock face, using her claws and feet to propel her upward. Once she got in the rhythm, she accelerated into super-speed.
She rocketed out of the top and into the center of a chamber. Three passageways fanned out in opposite directions. The map flashed in her mind, pointing her up a ramp to the right.
Kira charged toward the opening, but her feet were knocked out from underneath her midstride.
When she caught herself with her hands, she looked back to see a creature like the ones she’d encountered on her way in. It rounded on her, fangs bared.
The creature yelped and recoiled, its hindquarters only a step from the shaft’s lip.
Kira kicked it in its wounded side, knocking it through the opening.
Two dozen beasts crouched in the shadows, ready to pounce. The four luminescent eyes above each of their powerful jaws were filled with bloodlust. One daring creature slinked forward, snarling at Kira.
“If you won’t join us in life, then your death will bring us pleasure,” the chorus of Trol voices whispered at the edge of her consciousness.
Kira sprinted for the passageway leading to the shuttle. She could hear the pack of creatures loping behind her, but she kept her attention ahead.
Kira already felt like she was running as fast as she could, but she pushed even harder. The world around her changed—almost like it was skipping forward. Features in the passageway that had seemed far away were suddenly next to her.
Kira didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t care. All that she knew was she had to put distance between her and her attackers, and her shuttle was right up ahead.
The Trols still beckoned at the edge of her mind, asking her to stay. The tone of their most recent pleas had soured, changing to a request for her to stay so that they could ‘dissect’ her and ‘revel in her suffering’.
It wasn’t a good sales message.
She burst into an open chamber, the stone walls extending upward further than she could see. At the center of the open space was her shuttle, seemingly undamaged. It still rested on the fibrous material it had landed on, but everything else was different.
On her final approach to the craft, Kira peered upward, and that’s when she noticed faint pinpricks of light.
Kira raced into the back hatch of the shuttle and closed the door. She wasn’t sure how far behind her those creatures might be, and she didn’t want to find out.
Millions of voices called out to Kira as the shuttle zoomed through the cylinder and up into open space. She ignored them, letting out a little laugh. As she relaxed, she returned to her standard form.
Kira noticed the countdown clock in the corner of the shuttle’s front viewport. The arrival time to the Raven and the opportunity window for the assault on the Trol ship were only seconds apart.
Jasmine didn’t reply.
The Raven came into view up ahead, and few things had ever been a more welcome sight in Kira’s life. However, her joy was cut short when she saw the telltale signs of the engines igniting.
Kira secured her harness. She held her breath and gripped the armrest. We have to make it back. We’re so close now…
She had been willing to give her life for the mission when it was about venturing into the unknown, but now that she was so close to success and safety, she wanted nothing more than to be back with her team… and to see Leon again.
The Raven went from a distant speck to taking up the shuttle’s viewport in an instant. They were coming in way too fast to dock.
Then the Raven rolled to the side and began accelerating away from the shuttle, matching its trajectory.
Kira remained silent while Jasmine made the necessary adjustments to pull off what by all accounts should be an impossible maneuver. The remaining distance between the two craft closed quickly, and the shuttle came into alignment with the bay entrance. She half-closed one eye and braced.
A bang, followed by the squeal of grinding metal, assaulted Kira’s senses. She was knocked sideways and would’ve been sent tumbling from her chair, were it not for her harness holding her in place.
The shuttle came to rest in an emergency net.
Kira breathed a sigh of relief. Looking out the front viewport, she saw her team’s temporary workspace a mere four meters away. Without the emergency net, her teammates would have been a splat on the bay wall—and her, too, for that matter.
— — —
“Shuttle just reached the Raven!” Rianne announced.
Kaen straightened in his chair. Only three minutes and twenty-seven seconds to go. Kyle and Nia need to hold on.
“Maintain your position,” he ordered. “Shields in the Elvar Trinary are still tinted?”
“Yes, sir,” the comm tech acknowledged.
“Charging the weapon now,” Jason said. He gripped the handholds on the podium in front of his seat.
An electrical hum filled the air as the ship built up the charge—this time, building toward the maximum Jason could safely handle.
Kaen watched the progress of the Raven onscreen. Despite its actual speed, it appeared to be lazily approaching the Conquest across the vast span between them.
He couldn’t believe Sandren had authorized the reckless shuttle retrieval. As much as Kaen wanted to see Kira home safely, having the shuttle come in hot like that had put the entire mission at risk at the last second. If any of the calculations had been off, the shuttle could have easily careened into Kyle and Nia’s workstations, and that would have been the end of their security bypass.
They had made it, though, and they were about to blast the Trol bastards out of existence.
“Thirty seconds to clearance from blast range!” Rianne updated.
Almost there…
The final seconds ticked down onscreen. Kaen took a deep breath right before it reached zero.
“Fire!”
Jason released the energy charge.
The blast shot across open space to the Trol ship. The energy beam collided with the vessel, lancing through it with a spectacular plume of blue light. Secondary explosions rippled through the ship as it collapsed slightly, and then it began folding inward on itself. A bright flash in the center of the ship whited out the screen at the front of the bridge.
When it cleared, fragments from the Trol ship were hurtling outward, and the energy orb at the center of the ship swel
led to encompass them. As the orb slowly contracted, no sign of the vessel remained.
Jason smiled, though he looked wiped out. “That’s more like it.”
— — —
Kira collapsed to the floor of the Raven’s bay as she stepped out of the shuttle, gripping her head.
Millions of minds screamed in agony. Somehow, she was still linked with them.
When Gaelon had been destroyed, she had felt the Trols’ pain in their final moments. But that was only one nest; this Trol ship had hundreds. Each of the millions of minds within the collective consciousness cried out in one last bid for life.
It sucked Kira in. Her invisible ties to them bound her mind to theirs, and as they faded, she found herself on the edge of an abyss staring into nothingness.
She tried to shift again, to break her hold, but she couldn’t feel her body.
The darkness closed in around her.
Kira tried to reach out to her, only she had no bearings. She was falling inside her own mind.
Then a new presence emerged.
The Trols’ voices of hate and pain were gone, replaced by a distant chorus that drew her back toward her physical self.
Her eyes shot open, and she picked herself up off the ground.
Ari and Sandren ran toward her, as Kyle and Nia rose from their workstations, their faces drawn with concern.
“What happened?” Sandren asked, offering to help her the rest of the way to her feet.
“I need to decontaminate before anyone touches me,” she told him, standing upright on her own. “I think the Trols had some sort of hold on me up until the end. They’re gone now.”
He nodded. “The ship has been destroyed. It’s over.”
Kira breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the stars!”