Karma of Kalpana

by T. L Smith

  The interruption of their communications had been effective, but the remainder of the enemy fleet was fighting again. This confirmed highly talented Punitraq were aboard those ships and they were regaining control of their crews. There were still four warships, six cruisers, and a few thousand fighters.

  Sharmila held back, letting the Elders, EH and Humans fight this part of the war, reserving our strength. Only when the Punitraq attempted to clustered their ships together, did Gardner turn to us. We already knew this strategy, so we knew the cluster had to be broken before they could join forces.

  “Let us deal with this.” Sharmila spoke softly to Garner, showing us what she wanted to do.

  Just as she’d done before, Sharmila spread our senses over the ships, seeking their command ship. We tried, but I was struck by the pain of tortured souls, most likely the slave crews suffering from the attacks. Sharmila had to steel herself against my distraction, but she was having trouble finding her targets.

  “They’re using them to block us. Look deeper.” Everett whispered to Sharmila. “Look for what you can’t see. A void in the pattern. A lack of energy.”

  Sharmila grasped his meaning and refocused. It only took a few moments before she found blind spots in the midst of all the chaos. No minds screaming in pain or fury. Just emptiness. She burrowed into that darkness and brushed against an unsuspecting mind. She felt the power flowing around him. The power of others. She was inside the web and gently invaded his mind.

  Through the eyes of her unsuspecting host she looked to the gathering. These beings looked like their queen. Officers in her army, sent to keep their slave soldiers in the war. Sent to strike down the invaders who’d dared to come to their world.

  They stood circled, joining their talents as I’d done to reach all the EH. Through Sharmila I could feel their energy. “These aren’t the ghostly wraiths I first saw. They probably fed recently. Recent enough to be stronger than we might normally find.”

  Sharmila gave me a silent nudge, focused on this group. They looked very much like Sharmila’s mate, except the eyes. We had eyes like Sharmila, usually an open crystal gray, but capable of going to a deadly cold silver in battle. Theirs was a lifeless gray, dark, looking like they would shift to a deathly black any second.

  She saw the resemblance and differences too. Through her, we felt what they were attempting. They were merging their minds into one, to regroup their ships, break the barricade and come after me.

  "We’re infiltrated this deep. Let’s strike the now.” Everett whispered from inside our circle. “We’re stronger. Take advantage of the opportunity and strike from within.”

  Sharmila resisted. She’d never tried anything like that.

  “Yes, you have. Every time you created a network. You pulled and shared images from all the EH and Elders. Only this time we’ll send them images so intense it will overload them. Break them.” I provided my own worst nightmare as an example. “With all three of us working together, we can force this image into their minds.”

  “Yes. We can do this.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Sharmila felt pleased with our idea. I felt her pull us in tighter, making sure there were no weaknesses in our own defenses, before she turned our power on the host she’d connected to.

  The merged minds didn’t sense our added presence, or how we helped them with their exact task. We drew them in, creating one mind. One mind. One consciousness. She wrapped around our prey, then started to constrict, releasing the imagery I’d provided. At first very subtle, giving them the sensation that they were achieving their purpose.

  Their psychic energy compressed around them, but it wasn’t being released as they’d intended. She clenched their power tighter as they started to resist. Unable to break free, the pressure built up inside their mortal brains, becoming excruciating, maddening. Sharmila felt their crushing pain. It was time to add visual stimuli, turning our grip into a giant serpent, sinuous coils wrapping around the Punitraq. They screamed as she rolled tighter and tighter.

  Terror competed with agony, as she strangled the life from their minds, and they dissolved from her grasp, bodies and souls destroyed. Sharmila withdrew, reflecting on this creature I chosen.

  “A boa?” Everett laughed as we rushed back into our own mental space. “You’re afraid of snakes?”

  Sharmila swung around to the weapons officer. “Turn all our weapons on that ship.” She pointed it out in the officer’s head.

  His hands flew over the controls to retarget weapons. She swung back to the screen as the first shots were fired. They returned fire simultaneously, but then it became erratic. We didn’t let up on their command ship, even as the first implosions began. Slowly the hull collapse cascaded up the side of the warship, spreading to the other ships still locked together.

  The perfect domino effect, culminating in a silent deathly disintegration of the last of their warships.

  Sharmila dropped her head back into the headrest. While the process proved effective, it had sucked energy out of her. When the smaller Punitraq ships attempted to retreat, Sharmila started to focus on another ship, but Everett stopped her. “No! Gardner can finish this.”

  I pushed forward. “I agree. We still need to find their bases, their war infrastructure. Whether their queen can talk to them or not, they’ll have enough high level officers to fight us.”

  “I agree.” Sharmila stood from her chair. “Commander. They’re all yours now.”

  I felt her let go and I rose to the surface. Gardner noticed the transition with a slight squint. “I need time to recover before we finish hunting down their queen.”

  “You don’t think she’s dead in the towers?” Gardner and Everett asked simultaneously.

  “No!” Sharmila answered, but I finished. “I touched her for the briefest second. It was intense and… I can’t explain it, but I’d feel it if she died.”

  “Then it is best you rest. As soon as we’ve got this swarm exterminated, we need to talk about what you did.” She gave me another squint, knowing we did more than simply identify the target for her gunners.

  I left the war to her and her commanders.

  Sharmila rested after our battle with the hybrids. She rested, but I didn’t. Not yet. Everett was within me and as a military commander, he needed to watch as the last ships were destroyed, or damaged. The damaged ships were allowed to run. But not before they witnessed what we did to the larger ships in their fleet.

  Like hungry vultures we ripped the ships apart, bombarding them until they shattered and then picking at their scattered carcasses. Bewildered and leaderless ships took advantage of our apparent blood-lust and slipped away, unaware that Gardner tagged their ships so we could track them back to their remaining lairs.

  He’d have watched longer, until I reminded him that another battle had to be fought, soon. By our unique triad. I needed him as strong as I needed Sharmila. And they needed me. Only then did he let me rest. An odd rest, with him in my head. It wasn’t the same as having him with me, but sleep came far easier than since his injury.

  When I woke, I felt ready to face Gardner. Ready to face the council and our next challenges. Everett whispered encouragement as I delivered our war strategy. “In history, attackers often walled in a city, depriving them of resources. We don’t have that leisure. Their resources are living slaves. We need to storm the cities, free anything not Punitraq and then systematically hunt down the Punitraq, regardless of gender, station or…age.” I said the words, cringing as they came out of my mouth.

  Gardner gave me her full support. “We’ll need to capture slaves, figure out their language and get them to self-evacuate, to run as far from the fight as possible. I’d prefer they join us in the hunt, but I doubt they’re capable of trust, or turning so easily against their masters.

  “We already represent the strongest lesson of trust…” I circled the board, commanders coming in multiple species. “…with this Collective. Ground crews need to be as mixe
d of species as possible.”

  Huracid hummed, a sound he’d picked up when in thought. It eased those around him, preferable to his prior growling rumbles. “Many species fighting, instead of dying, together.”

  “But as few human and EH as possible in each group.” I brushed my cheek, feeling the warmness of my flesh, still running hotter than humans. “The Punitraq resemble the Elders, so they’ll look very much like me. Except the eyes. Humans are the next closest in appearance. We shouldn’t appear to be the dominant members of the ground crews.”

  I enlarged another image on the desk. The slave being driven by soldiers. “These are not the Punitraq, but it is likely we’ll have to treat them as hostiles. The soldiers are tattooed with scars. We found them on the ships and here. They’re accustomed to brutality and from evidence on the warships, cannibalistic. This extreme conditioning is not something we can rehabilitate. Kill them. No mercy.” I felt Everett push those words out of my mouth.

  The soldiers brought a vile taste to my mouth, but not the slaves themselves. “We’ll give untattooed slaves the benefit of a doubt, until proven otherwise.”

  I let Everett throw in a few more instructions, then turned them back to Gardner, and their final plans. They had their orders and I needed to prepare for my own part in the ground mission. I needed to set my mind, our minds, to the task. As much as I’d protested, I was glad Everett would be there as a balance between me and Sharmila.

  As soon as the meeting ended, Gardner accompanied me to my quarters. She sat staring at me as she sipped on a glass of scotch. She let out a sigh. “We’ve sent the first wave of our invasion down. We’re in high orbit and monitoring the operations. Are you ready and are you sure you need to do this?”

  “Their queen might not have the means to communicate as she had before, but as long as she’s alive, she’s our biggest threat.”

  “And it has to be you.” She pressed her lips together.

  “It can’t be anyone else. She’s powerful, like a dozen of the biggest bad-assed EH you ever met, rolled into one. If she gets away… there’s no telling what she can do.”

  “And you think you’re qualified to hunt her down?” Gardner raised an eyebrow, instantly making me feel like a teenager acting all grown up. “You might be a lot more than just a little EH dame, maybe even have the talents of a dozen of our guys yourself, but you’re not a killer. You won’t stand a chance against her.”

  “I managed to hold my own in a rough business, but I wouldn’t bet on me either, but I’m not alone. I have Everett and Sharmila. She’s a match to their queen and Everett knows how to deliver ‘extreme prejudice’. I own the conscious of failing. So it’ll be three to one.”

  Gardner continued that parental ‘who are you kidding’ gaze. “Okay, say this queen is alive. I let you go down there to kill her, what about the others? There will be other high-level Puni, and Sharmila is dying.”

  Sharmila winced deep inside me.

  “What’s going to happen when Sharmila’s dead and we come up against someone vying to replace their queen? Are you going to go after them in her place?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You don’t have the stomach for it. That’s why you never made it in the Corps. So here’s what’s really going to happen.”

  I wanted to argue, but Everett held my tongue.

  She looked to her colonel and back at me. “You are literally going to take a dozen bad-assed, high-level EH with you. You show them how to deal with the Puni and they will clear a path for Sharmila to take on this queen. From you two… three…” She corrected herself to include Everett. “You three are going to make sure this special team can continue if you can’t. Just as you had teams to help integrate the EH, they’ll teach them how to take down powerful Puni. A team of mental snipers.”

  Gardner hesitated as I cringed again, this time Everett matched my disgust. Even her colonel looked away. She leaned forward, fixing her eyes to mine. “I know that was mostly Sharmila and that the EH have never been able to take their talents to that extreme, before. I know you think it’s repulsive, even dishonorable, but this is war. A war against an enemy who has already used their abilities against the EH.”

  “We fully understand that, but we also have to consider our souls.”

  “We’ve discussed this and selected soldiers we believe are capable of handling this task, with the guidance of their Elders. They’ll be able to level the playing field.”

  She gave us a moment to consider the plan. Sharmila approved. Everett conditionally agreed. I felt it was a terrible thing to do to this new team. They’d be scarred for life. I knew, first hand. But this was war and we were all going to pay a personal price before it was over.

  Gardner recognized my acceptance, standing up. She made it to the door, then stopped. “Lastly…” She looked back over her shoulder. “…as soon as this queen is dead, you and Col. Everett will be shipped back to the Orb. Is that completely understood?”

  “I can’t think about anything afterwards. I have to focus on the here and now.” As soon as I have their queen...” When Sharmila made her kill. “…I’ll leave.”

  Gardner’s expression changed. Gentleness came back into her eyes. “This is best, my dear, you’ll see. You’re going to have enough scars from what you’ve been forced to do. I won’t be responsible for cutting them any deeper.” She left me to my thoughts, to my dread.

  Gardner was right, I wasn’t a soldier and this war was taking a toll on me. Sharmila had killed, using me, the Elders and the EH. I’d been brutally isolated, even from the one person I needed most. She had driven him into danger.

  “Shhhh, stop this. I’m here with you. I’ll always be with you.”

  His body slept, but I felt his embrace comforting me.

  “You can’t think of the future, so I will. We’re going to win. We’re going to survive.”

  Sharmila echoed him. I could only hope they were right.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  I tried to not see the flashing lights visible through closed eyelids. I tried to not lose the warmth of Everett’s mental embrace, but he pushed me back to the present. Activating my desk screen, I watched as the enemy ships reached their destinations.

  Gardner’s plan to tag the ships worked. Two of the ships peeled away, leaving the worst damaged hovering over the edge of a mountain range. Only it wasn’t barren rock. Below the ship the flat plateau seemed to shimmer, then opened up. Of course we hadn’t found this complex. They’d buried it in the mountain. Now it was revealing itself. I heard Gardner ordering new scans on more intense spectrums.

  As I watched, structures rose upwards in a ring below the ship. The inward walls opened. Metal scaffolding unfolded, stretching out over the open expanse. They came together and overlapped to create a web between the structures. The ship descended, a little too fast. It tried to slow down. An explosion sent smoke and fire from an engine port.

  The ship lost control and collided into one of the docking towers. It swerved as it continued dropping, landing hard in the web. Portals opened in the towers and ramps unfolded towards the ship, as the web became rigid. In seconds a mass exodus ensued. Soldiers rushed from the ship and into the towers.

  The whole process was sadly impressive as two of our ships fell out of the atmosphere over the complex. Laser beams targeted the docking web at the rear of the smoldering ship. They aimed at the ship too, targeting the damaged ports. A huge explosion jolted the ship in the web and the steady lasers on the web achieved the desired effect. The aft sections started to melt, the web lost integrity, beginning to sag.

  Ramps were wrenched from their moorings and bodies tumbled to their deaths far below the doomed ship. I couldn’t hear it, but clearly imagined the sound of metal grating against metal, as the ship slipped backwards into the unstable section of web. In slow-motion the web collapsed completely under the weight of the ship.

  The explosion sent a fireball up the ring of towers, killing anyone still clinging to the web. Ou
r warships methodically destroyed the complex, the whole plateau collapsing in on itself. I felt Everett groan as he thought of how badly Faraday would object. “I guess we don’t need anything here, not with the cache we already have. Gardner is definitely as intent on wiping out the Puni as Sharmila is.”

  “That’s clear enough.” I left the desk, no need to watch anymore of the seek-and-destroy mission. From my wardrobe I reached for my boots. Everett pushed my hand to my old utility boots. “We’ll be in an EV suit.”

  I took out the old boots, some spots so worn I could see the shape of my toes. “When we’re done, I guess I’ll need some new ones. Or…” A surge of uncertainly left me immobile, frozen in place with my boots hanging limp in my hands.

  Invisible arms wrapped around me again. “When this is done we’ll get you a dozen pair, because there will be an ‘after’ for us. No matter what happened in that old book.”

  “You fulfilled the prophesy by bringing me here. With this last task you will be free of your duty.” Sharmila offered her own voice of support.

  “Will I?” I held a hand out, looking at the glowing lines that marked me as an Elder.

  “We will, and this doesn’t matter.” My hand closed, as if he gripped it in his. “Our souls are bound together, my love.” He calmed me down and I was ready by the time Gardner’s colonel arrived.

  The colonel led me to a briefing room outside one of the docking bays, to meet my new cadre of assassins. Ten men in all waited for me. All senior officers, high-level EH, battle-proven and capable. They had no misplaced illusions of what we asked them to do.

  Gardner briefed us on our search for the hidden base complexes, but also on the destruction of towers, by order of the city’s size and energy signals. The capital city she left to my… Sharmila’s disposal.

  Resistance around the queen’s towers had already been cleared and the first of Huracid’s ground troops were dirtside. They’d already scanned for subterranean structures beneath the towers and confirmed tunnels leading to a massive underground chamber.