Karma of Kalpana

by T. L Smith

  Opening my eyes again, I was alive in the center of the universe, but I wasn’t cold or frightened. Again I witnessed time, and the birth and death of many species, long before humans crawled out from caves. I watched many great species come together, forming the Collective.

  But another force grew. The Punitraq. They created havoc and death, destroying any species they found. The Elders led a terrible war against this enemy, eventually bringing the Punitraq down, but the Collective granted them mercy.

  Unsure of this decision, the Elders put safeguards into place. Remnants of themselves as they evolved beyond their physical existence. They planted DNA strands into new species, but only one experiment survived, to lay dormant, awaiting the time they would need to rise again.

  As a second safeguard, one of their kind sacrificed her soul, allowing it to be transferred into a human, to be reincarnated through time. One soul to cultivate the buried seeds of the Elders. That soul lived in me and it was my task to bring the EH here.

  It was the same story told from the moment I was touched by the Elders, but I needed to know why the Elders really needed us. “I know this! Tell me everything. Now!” The answers hit me with a stunning clarity, throwing me out of the union.

  I pushed my way back to them, furious.

  “I won’t do that to my brothers and sisters. I won’t allow you to take over our wills and use us as tools. We fought a war to be free.”

  There was a rush of Elders upon me again, crushing me with thoughts too jumbled to translate. But then I recognized a sense of security, as Carl interceded. He pushed them back, speaking for them. “We have no motivation to dominate our children. We have no desire to become mortal again.”

  That stung to hear from Carl, but he had suffered enough in one life alone, let alone the thousands before. “They would only join souls long enough to assist the EH, to complete the mission. Let me show you their intent.”

  It was Carl, and while he was now one of them, I could feel he still belonged to me. “I trust you.” I relaxed in his touch and he channeled the Elders’ visions to me at a pace I could absorb. When done, he eased away enough for me to think for myself again, and still feel him. “Reach out to the EH. Trust us.”

  Carl departed and the link broke. I was back in the dayroom, nestled in my pillows with Everett watching intently.

  More than watching, absorbing some of what I learned. He looked away immediately. “The IGF’s first contingent will arrive in a few days. What is your plan?”

  “Wait. A few days? That’s sooner than we thought.”

  He nodded. “They assumed the Med-Evac’s disappearance had something to do with the Tamanni distress call. A patrol was nearly here. They’ll give the IGF an immediate verification.”

  “Good, but we need to take action of our own. The EH need to merge consciousness with the Elders.” I held up a hand as Everett started to protest. “It will be different than what I do. It will be one-on-one, similar to what… to what you experienced with Carl.”

  “Which was extremely painful…” He ground his teeth, trying even harder not to look at me. “…and invasive in a way I can’t condone.”

  “I never asked, just sensed that Carl delivered a message to you, after he…” I swallowed the surge of heartache. “…died. I’m sure he never intended to harm you.” I took a deep breath. “This time it will be by invitation and matched… genetically, kind of. The Elders will search for their distant offspring, an energy match. The closer the match, the easier the integration.”

  “So, we meet our great-grand-sires? Then what?”

  “Then we attempt a remote communication to all EH.”

  Immediately a patronizing smile curled Everett’s lips.

  “I know, it’s a myth, but the Elders showed me how. If a war is coming, the IGF doesn’t have the technology to fight these Punitraq. Neither does the Collective. The Elders do, but they need us. They created us for this purpose. If we don’t do this, the Punitraq darkness will consume all of us.”

  Everett clasped his temples to shut out the waves of persuasion I sent his way. His voice rough. “I know. This is why we’re here.” I backed off and he stopped resisting. “You’ll have to show me.”

  “Thank you.” I slipped over to sit in before Everett, my hands extended, palms up. “I need you to trust me again.” He didn’t pull away as I eased my fingers to his temples. I felt pulsing through my fingers. “Don’t fight me. With it the pain will ease.”

  His wall was there, but nothing I couldn’t easily pass through, especially as he tried to release what had risen between us. Within the barriers, I could feel the pain of the forced encounter with Carl. As natural as breathing, I conjured a gentle cool breeze in my mind and blew away the lingering ache.

  Immediately Everett leaned his head further into my healing hands. “Trust me.”

  I didn’t let go of him as Elders swarmed into the dayroom, circling us. I could feel the electricity in the air as they brushed against us. Not painful shocks, but Everett could feel them. Finally, I saw them drift away, except for one spark of light. With my hands still grasping Everett’s face, it settled between his brows, then absorbed into him.

  Everett’s body stiffened, but he didn’t resist as the Elder merged his energy. The initial shock faded and a light came over his face. His breaths were deeper and his senses expanded. In another moment I felt them conversing. I closed my eyes, shutting down my own senses. This was Everett’s moment of awareness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  My hands still caressed his face as the Elder left. There was a new light of awareness in Everett’s eyes, more of his own EH talents opened with this encounter. “See, it wasn’t painful.” He smiled. Something I hadn’t seen in days. I stroked his cheek. “Why have you been so distant, so angry with me?”

  His hands pressed mine harder to his cheeks. “I’m not angry. I’m torn, confused.” His discomfort and guilt flowed from his mind into mine. I caught a brief image of myself through Everett’s eyes, hair flowing over my shoulders, wrapped in silk Carl bought off one of our cargos. The sari kept me close to Carl, a reminder of my human heritage, despite all the Elders said of my true origins. I wore the sari because Carl wasn’t here to keep me grounded. I needed to cling to some part of myself, or be pulled over completely.

  Everett’s eyes blinked as he read those thoughts. “You won’t disappear into them.”

  “War is coming and I am the center.” The gentle image in Everett’s eyes changed as my thoughts turned to my namesake. Kali, the Goddess of Destruction. In my hands were weapons, as galaxies circled around me. I was bringing destruction upon the universe.

  “No, you’re not. Kali destroyed to protect. You are defending us.” His hands released mine, reaching out to embrace my face too. His silver eyes were warm, inviting. Not cold or scary as most people thought of EH. His face was open, inviting, and staring at him, I didn’t see the rough square jaw or scars from battle. His hands were gentle, despite the huge shoulders. His arms could engulf me. Smother me. But I didn’t want to run away.

  He leaned closer and I could feel his warm breath against my face. I felt his desire to kiss me. I let him pull my face closer, but just as his lips brushed mine, that wall he’d put up between us dropped again.

  He released me and twisted to his feet. “What are your orders?”

  Breaking the connection between us was as shocking as where it almost led. Now I was the one not able to look him in the eyes. I caught my breath. “Bring me our strongest empaths, level fours or higher. We will start with them.”

  “As you wish.” Everett bowed and left.

  The next day seventeen men waited as I entered the dayroom. All level fours or better? I expected five, maybe six in any normal unit, but this many? How had fate manipulated these odds.

  I felt a bit more confident. “Thank you for agreeing to do this.” I’d asked for volunteers, but EH knew there was no such thing. They agreed because they wanted the truth.


  I took a deep breath. “What you’ve learned, you learned peripherally. Now you’ll find out for yourselves how and why we exist.” I went to my place before the portal, gracefully folding myself upon a cushion. I gestured to the other pillows in the nest. “Pull up a chair, boys.” I smiled as they looked uncomfortable. “Consider it a safety precaution. A shorter distance to fall if any of us pass out.”

  Everett took a place to my right. The rest followed his example, creating a circle.

  “By now you’ve shared fragments of Maj. Everett’s encounters. In those fragments he learned human life might not exist today, if not for a war the Elders fought in their time. They feared that evil would rise again and took precautions. We are those precautions. We are their offspring.”

  I received a nod of understanding from the group. “Today you’ll reunite with your ancestors.” The desire for the truth overwhelmed any sense of dread for what might happen next. They didn’t want to prolong this any further. “Make sure you are not touching the soldier next to you. This first encounter has to be as individuals.”

  They spaced themselves out and I closed my eyes. “Put yourselves into meditative states.” It took a few minutes, but the room was soon very silent. “Open your minds to them, as you do to each other. Invite them to come to you. You are of them. They wish you no harm.”

  Behind closed eyes I could see EH life energies burning bright. Quiet fires, opening themselves to their fates. The Elders were here too, waiting.

  “My brothers, remember, they are pure energy. They come seeking a match, seeking a long-lost thread of themselves within you. They will not force a bond.” I spoke as much to my brothers as I did the Elders, cautiously releasing control.

  The swarm of ghostly creatures barely touched the EH, but I could see electrical charges flash around the men. Each brush searching for a primordial match. Elders disappeared for the next wave, others arrived. Slowly I saw Elders beginning to linger. Their touches lasting longer. Then the first real match sparked between an Elder and EH.

  A sense of elation and belonging, as deep as the length of time separating these souls, overwhelmed us all in that microsecond. One by one matches were made. I opened my eyes to look upon them, seeing a total peace that brought beauty to the faces of these rugged men, possibly for the first time in their lives.

  As their leader, Everett was the last to succumb, his Elder patiently waiting until all the matches were made. I closed my eyes and melted my consciousness into theirs. Eighteen souls and ancestors. They focused on me. On my purpose. “I need to join our talents in a way you’ve never attempted before. War approaches and we need to call all EH to us. Will you help me?”

  Through their new companions the EH saw my intent. Like Everett, they had thought it wasn’t real. Until now. “You have welcomed your ancestor, but you need to give in to their will so they can show you the way.” I expected some hesitancy, but in unison I saw the flames of energy merge, burning hotter as one.

  I held out my hands and the EH physically linked their hands and their powers. Linked, it now flowed to me. I drew their powers in like a fisherman’s net, their energy colliding and growing exponentially. I held tight, letting them thrash and swarm before me, taking on order for the task. I wrapped the energy around the message I needed to deliver to the EH.

  Compressing it, as I visualized the effect of a collapsing star. I squeezed the capsule down to its smallest unit, turning my thoughts to where I wanted the energy to go. Out. Out to the millions of EH scattered like stars on the spiral of our galaxy. I was the center, the collapsing star, pulling in everything within reach, until…

  The explosion sent our merged consciousness’s out into the galaxy. Particles of thought. Splinters of energy, growing hotter as they exceed FTL, as they exceed all known speeds. Small slivers of our message racing towards our home worlds. Spreading the truth. Spreading the mission. Taking part of me with them.

  As the last of our collective energy slipped beyond my grasp, I let go of the EH, of the Elders, and myself. The floor felt cold under my hands and I was glad there was nowhere to fall as I felt my whole body go limp. I’d done what I set out to do. They’d done as I asked.

  Iron gripped hands unfolded and the men pushed away from each other, needing to isolate their senses. Their companions gently flowed away, not wanting to drain their offspring further. From outside the dayroom non-EH medics rushed in.

  I waved them away from me, setting them on the men most obviously stunned. “Treat the worst for shock. Hydrate the others.” My voice cracked. I wanted water too and would have jumped, had I the energy, when cold water dripped onto my shoulder.

  I looked at Huracid as he knelt beside me. “Do not neglect your needs.” He handed Everett the other bottle, then went to assist my team. The water chilled my throat and Everett’s relief matched mine, with a long, grateful sigh. I felt him urge me to lean upon him and I did, my body starting to shake as exhaustion flowed into every muscle. “I hope it worked.”

  “It had to. I never imagined anything like it.”

  The water bottle crinkled in my hand, though designed to withstand a great deal of pressure. I eased my grip. “If I fail…”

  “You mean ‘we’. You aren’t alone anymore. You will have an army behind you.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh nervously. “Somehow that image doesn’t make me comfortable. An army behind me, a world devouring enemy in front.” I knew it wasn’t funny, but I was too tired to hold back my sarcasm.

  Everett laughed as well, then pulled me to my feet. “You need to rest.” His arm wrapped tight around my waist to support my weak knees. I pushed away from his support. I needed to be strong before the soldiers. I stared at them for another moment, seeing inside them. Just this one encounter with their ancestors had forever changed them. Just as the Elders had changed me. But not in the same way.

  The Elders had made me different. Stronger. Shaping me into what they needed, but into what exactly? I wasn’t human, I wasn’t EH, and I wasn’t Elder. I was still an outsider. I still stood outside the window, watching the heartbreaking ecstasy of the union between Elder and EH. But couldn’t feel it myself.

  I rushed out of the dayroom as loneliness unlike any I ever remembered rushed over me. It crushed me like a thousand gravities. I’d never belong. The weight of this truth was too much to bear and I fell. Everett’s arms kept me from hitting the deck and he scooped me up in his arms, rushing me the rest of the way to my quarters.

  I clung to him as he tried to put me down. I opened my aching soul and felt him tremble.

  “Kali, don’t...” He tried to keep his barriers up against me. “Kali, I can’t… Stop it!”

  A rush of anger hit me. The anger he’d had since his encounter with Carl. “Why do you hate me? Because I’m not like you? I can’t help it. I didn’t choose this.” My fingers tightened as my emotions turned to bitterness. “I don’t want this!”

  My fists hit on his chest, once, twice, hard, then harder as my isolated turmoil boiled out. “I’m doing everything they want, but I get pushed further and further away. Everything I love is ripped away, life after life. I can’t do this alone.” I hit his chest again. “I can’t!”

  “No… you can’t!” Everett grabbed my wrists, his eyes flared as he bent over me. His mouth covered mine. Before he had stopped himself, but now I started to twist away. He didn’t let me and I gasped as he pressed my back against the wall. His body pressed hard against mine and I felt even weaker to feel his desire wash over me.

  This wasn’t anger. His hands released my wrists, moving down my sides. The silk of my sari gave way as easily as the barriers around his mind. The silver of his eyes burned into me as he twisted his body against mine, removing his jacket. His eyes never left mine as he lifted me up and wrapped my body around his. His mouth devoured me as he brought our bodies together as tightly as our minds.

  I gasped, arching my body to his. He thrust deeper and I clung to him even tighter. His
passion was furious and I wanted it all. I absorbed him physically and psychically. Our souls flowed into one. All else disappeared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “You did well, Kali. Every day you grow stronger.” The mist swirled and took semi-form, no recognizable features, but I knew the feeling. “They are pleased.” I wanted to speak, but he knew my thoughts and a wistful tendril swept over me. “My duty is here now. When I am fully integrated, you’ll not sense me again”

  I felt a panic and tried to go to him, but he backed away. “No. The one you need is beside you. Bonded to you. Don’t be afraid to accept his love.”

  “No!” I reached out my arms, but the man beside me wasn’t Carl. I jerked my hands back and pulled a tangle of my sari and blankets around me, pushing back into the corner of my bunk. I covered my face, my eyes closed tight, Carl’s image was replaced by what had happened here.

  “Are you alright?” Fingers stroked the back of my hand. “Was it a bad dream?”

  “No.” I felt him shift, sitting up and gently pulling my hands from my face. Everett’s fingers gently gripped mine. I could feel their warmth and strength, his mind was still open to me, but all I could see was the craziness that gripped me. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  “I didn’t want this either. I tried not to…I never…” He became flustered, torn between conscience and emotions. “…I’ve been drawn to you since the first time I met you. I tried to keep my distance. Then Carl… when he died—"

  Words to describe this were hard for Everett, but his thoughts and memories played out for me. Carl hadn’t attacked Everett, but saw an EH bond had already been made. He pressed the duty of protecting me onto Everett, intensifying the bond I had yet to feel.

  “An EH bond. With you?” I suddenly realized why Everett’s anger and distance had hurt so much. Was this what Carl tried to tell me? I dared to raise my eyes, to stare into his. “You and me? We’re a mated pair?”