by Drew Avera
“So, where is the weapon now?”
Ka’Hor’al readjusted himself in the seat. “They found evidence from four years ago that T’anoi made more than one. It’s poor quality video footage of another installation where Carista and others like her were held. The whereabouts are unknown, but if we can find a paper trail, then we will find the weapon.”
Hespha thought about what he said and realized they had been deceived by T’anoi the entire time they worked with him. She pulled a tear from her eye before it ran down her cheek. "I wonder what else we did not know.”
"I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that."
"Neither do I," she said. "But it seems T’anoi's past is going to haunt us longer than we anticipated. Your brother had more things in the works than he wanted us to know. So, the girl was a clone. That means all of T’anoi's research wasn't wasted after all."
"What do you want to do about it?"
She looked out the dark window of the vehicle as it moved quietly down the secluded road. Rain began to fall, creating staggered streams against the glass. The change in weather reflected her mood perfectly. "When we have the weapon, then we'll use it. Until then, let’s keep it business as usual."
3
Anki
The room chilled Anki, causing her to curl under the blankets on her bed. No matter what she did, she could never shake the shivering sensation coursing through her body. It was like being caught in a blizzard neither she, nor anyone else, could see. It had been only a few weeks since their ordeal with CERCO, but the crew was at peace in a way she had not expected, and it made her uncomfortable. With Brendle on the bridge, she was alone with her thoughts, which often drifted to Carista. The young girl had made an impression on her despite their having known her for only a day. It was because of CERCO that Carista had been imprisoned and forced to act as a weapon by people who considered themselves scientists. To Anki, they were not scientists: they were monsters.
The scary thing for Anki was the lost time she experienced when she escorted the young girl onto the CERCO ship called the Yeopa. How did seconds turn into days? And how was it that she could hardly recall her experience on the ship while she was gone? It was confusing, almost as if she experienced amnesia after waking from a coma. She almost wished that was the explanation because it was something she could at least wrap her head around. That changed nothing though. The outcome was still the same, and Carista died saving them. Witnessing the blue orb surrounding her lifeless body in the dark filled Anki's mind. The haunting vision kept her up at night and there was nothing she could think to do to block it out. Sleep evaded her, and when she did sleep, she was haunted by ghastly memories making things worse.
Things are always worse before they get better, she hoped.
A knock at the door caused her to stir. "Come in," she said, hardly needing to speak loudly to be heard because the door was not fully closed.
Malikea stepped into the room, his crimson robe flittering at his heels as he walked. "Are you feeling all right?" His voice was soft and unobtrusive despite its being the third time he stopped by that day. Each time, Anki had smiled and nodded, hoping for him to leave her alone. She thought a different approach now might help.
Anki sat up and shrugged. "I suppose. Why do you ask?" The slight change in her behavior seemed to work.
He smiled at her and she thought he might call her a liar, but he did not. "I was hoping you would come up to the bridge during my shift, so we could talk," he said.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know there was anything in particular you wanted to talk about." She felt sorry for leaving him alone, but that was precisely how she wanted to be left at the moment. It felt as if she was constantly drowning in her thoughts and inner conversations. All she wanted was silence where there was none.
He sat down next to her and shook his head. "It's not that, I'm just worried about you, is all. We used to talk all the time before..."
He stopped talking and Anki knew exactly what he was going to say. "Before Carista?" no one else seemed to want to mention her name, but that was the least difficult thing for Anki to do. It was having a moment when the girl did not cross her mind that proved the most challenging.
Malikea looked as though he had been kicked in the teeth. "Yes."
Anki leaned closer to him and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. "I'm fine and I love you for caring enough about me to check up on me. I'm just having trouble processing what I went through, and the fact I can hardly remember most of it isn't helping me at all." The nightmares and lack of sleep aren’t helping either.
"I understand," he said as he rose from the bed. "I didn't mean to imply anything." Malikea’s face turned red, and he shifted uncomfortably.
Anki was worried that she might have offended him. "No, it's not that," she said. "Thank you for looking after me, but I'm not sure what will help pull me out of my own head right now."
He nodded apologetically, the look on his face breaking her heart. Malikea is the one I know I can always talk to, she thought, and it’s clear I haven't been doing that enough lately.
"I'll tell you what, why don't we plan a day on the next port, and just the two of us go out? We can grab some food and drink, and just have a good time without worrying about what may or may not be lurking around the corner," she suggested, more for her own benefit than his, but he didn’t have to know that.
"That sounds fun," he said. "But don't you think Brendle might feel a little jealous?"
Anki chortled at the thought. "No, I think he would like to get out of a day of potential shopping and walking around carrying my bags." Malikea laughed at her response and Anki could see his eyes light up. Maybe he needs these talks as much as I do. "Besides, Deis and Brendle get along great and would probably enjoy going out together. Brendle can drag Deis around to look at gadgets and all kinds of other things we have no way of affording."
"Deis would hate that," Malikea said. "As a priest, he was well taken care of. Money was never an issue for us. Of course, the tech was one of the things our society shunned. The only reason we had port umbilicals was because other worlds put them there to use our planet for resources."
"Really? I thought Lechushe' was just as advanced as Luthia?"
Malikea shook his head. "No, we were not a technologically advanced society. All our electronics originated from somewhere else, and only a small percentage of Lechuns used any of it, mostly those not of the faith. Deis and I eased into it slowly. That, in part, led to our curiosity about moving off-world and experiencing what life was like on other planets. Of course, you know how that turned out."
"Crase?"
"Yes."
Anki still remembered how Crase Tuin's grip on her neck felt as he choked her when he tried to reclaim the Replicade. In the end, the crew defeated him, but only because a Lechun man named Neular helped them. "I think it's normal to be curious about what else is out there," she said after an awkward silence. “I imagine part of the reason I joined the Marines was because of this. Of course, I’ve seen more of our universe while on the run from the Greshians than I did in service to my world, but then again, a lot has changed in my life.”
"It was an experience," Malikea replied. "Not all of it was bad, but there was a time I thought my life was over."
Me too, Anki thought. And it probably isn’t the time you think.
4
Ilium
Ilium’s eyes opened in the King Slayer’s smoke-filled bridge. He was disoriented, and his head throbbed. He tried to stand, but the harness strapped over his shoulders would not allow him to rise from his chair. The dimly lit bridge echoed the screams of the crew as a piercing alarm sounded. He could only imagine what horror was outside the enclosed space, spreading throughout the ship with the other men and women of the ship having been tossed and hurled, crashing into bulkheads, trying to avoid certain death. How many of them were successful? "What happened?" He croaked, his voice hoarse. Speaking made his chest hurt which created an
image in his mind of a possible internal injury that he waved off dismissively. I’m not dead, so it can’t be that bad.
"Sir, are you, all right?" Ensign Stavis asked. She hovered, a cut across her forehead oozing blood that she wiped away with the sleeve of her uniform. It took Ilium a moment to realize she wasn’t levitating, but standing over him as he lay back in his seat, the hinge of the chair reclined from the impact of what happened.
"I think so," Ilium replied. "Where's the captain?"
She looked at him, her eyes wide, either from shock or from injury, he could not tell. "He's in the med bay, Sir."
"What? That's it? That's all you have to say? What's wrong with him?" Ilium felt powerless. Captain Crexon oversees the ship. He is more knowledgeable, more of a leader, more adept at making the decisions for this vessel, Ilium thought.
"Where−" he meant to ask where the medical bay was, but he knew the answer. He was disoriented to the point he could barely piece together his own thoughts. He unbuckled the straps and let them fall to his sides as he rose from the chair. He thought each movement of his body was more painful than strictly necessary. With the captain in medical I'm in charge, he thought, but it felt like a question. "What is the status of the ship?" it was the only thing he could think of that made him sound as if he was worthy to be in command.
"We have seventy sailors injured and three dead, Sir," Ensign Stavis said. Her response felt like a kick to the gut. Why so many, Ilium wondered. How could we have avoided this?
Smoke tickled his nostrils as he forced himself to walk. Every part of his body felt as if it was bruised or broken, but he limped towards the exit and out into the passageway. "See to the rest of the crew. I'm going to the med bay," he said through a pain-induced gasp. Ilium felt something behind his ear and wiped at it with his hand, pulling it back to reveal dark, wet blood. That's not good, he thought, feeling queasy. I hate blood.
“Sir, you’re bleeding. Let me assist you,” Stavis said.
Ilium waved her off. “No, I need you to take care the ship. What better place for a bleeding man to go than to the med bay, right?” He meant it to be a joke, but her stern look suggested it was either missed or ill-timed.
“Yes, sir. I’ll handle the ship until you return,” she replied, her face pale with noticeable fear. Ilium recognized it in himself as well.
“I’ll send someone up to look at that cut for you,” he said, turning from the bridge and jogging down the passageway, one hand steadying himself on the bulkhead to keep from falling over. A duty not made easier as his left leg refused to cooperate, leaving him hobbling more than running.
To get to the med bay, Ilium had to traverse down two steep ladder wells which was no easy task as he limped along, dizzy and bleeding from his head. He lost his footing on the last four rungs of the well and collapsed to the deck, his legs folding under him awkwardly. He barely had a chance to scream before slamming his face against the deck with a loud, nauseating slap. He lay there a moment, trying to muster the courage to keep going. But he rose slowly from the deck, pulling himself up with the handrail for support.
"Do you need help, sir?" An enlisted man asked running up to Ilium. The man grabbed hold of Ilium's arm to steady him. “That was a significant fall, sir. I took a spill like that about a year ago and it messed my back up.” The man droned on, his words meaning less and less to Ilium as time passed and pain coursed through his veins.
"Thank you," he groaned. "I'm trying to reach the med bay to check on our sailors and the captain."
"I think you need medical assistance too, sir," the man replied, still holding onto Ilium’s arm.
Ilium shrugged. "After I see what's going on."
"Yes, sir. I'll help you."
Ilium exhaled and winced as sharp pain exploded through his skull, causing his vision to blur. "Please do." Ilium was not the kind of person to accept help like this easily, but somewhere in the panic and fear he felt outside himself. His experience on the King Slayer had changed a lot about the way he thought. He still felt the contempt for those who did him wrong, like Haranger, but now he was solely concerned for the well-being of his captain and crew. It was a quality he was not used to feeling.
“This way, sir.” The enlisted man, named Gara Ilium soon discovered, helped Ilium towards the medical bay. It was a longer trek than Ilium thought, and he knew without assistance, he would have fallen out and injured himself further. It wasn’t until he heard Gara’s voice again that he realized the young man had practically dragged him the rest of the way. "Commander Gyl needs assistance," the man said after lowering Ilium to a bench. He disappeared, leaving Ilium to look out at the bustling crowd of medical technicians helping dozens of injured sailors. There was a distinct smell that reminded Ilium of the massacre on his old ship the Hamæråté. It was the smell of blood, and it haunted him worse than any other memory in his life.
I brought this on, he thought. It’s because of the things I’ve done in life that these people are experiencing this. Guilt tickled his mind and made his heart beat faster. Ilium steadied himself on the bench, looking down the long, brightly lit passageway of the med bay as his vision tunneled and slowly turned dark.
5
Brendle
“I’m not saying she doesn’t believe it happened. I just don’t think what she experienced was real,” Brendle said.
Deis stood across from him, arms crossed and brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t think she would agree,” the gray man said sadly, casually scratching behind his bald head. “If you ask me, there are only two explanations; a psychic event, or a vision. Either of which would be difficult to prove. As I don’t believe Anki is one for religion, she would argue against that assessment. What we know about Carista makes a psychic event seem more likely, yet Anki is resistant to suggestions in that area as well. Of course, assuming a mental breakdown probably isn’t high on her list of acceptable answers either.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. She would be pissed if she knew I thought this way. I just don’t have an explanation to validate feeling this way.” Brendle shoved his hands into his pockets as he always did when he was worried. Anki hadn’t been herself since Carista’s apparent death, and that change affected their relationship. Brendle understood the impact of losing the girl, but there was more to the situation that Anki refused to talk about. Whatever that was, it made her grow colder and more depressed with each passing day. No matter what Brendle did, he just could not bring her out of her depression.
“It has to be the girl who put those images in her head,” Deis said, bringing the conversation back full circle.
Brindle nodded. “That’s what I thought at first because she put images in both of our heads at different times, but Anki swears that was not the case. She said it felt different, less like a dream and more like reality. She insists that Carista had nothing to do with how she perceived that experience, and the more I try to get her to open up about it, the more she retreats into herself.”
Deis canted his neck towards the door leading to the bridge, causing Brendle to look over too, but no one was there. “It could be post-traumatic stress,” he said finally. “It could be part of the psychological breakdown we’ve feared happening after all we’ve been through. Perhaps that was her breaking point.”
Brendle shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. Anki is one of the strongest people I know. If it was that, I think she would say something. I have the sinking thought that she feels victimized by what happened to her, not traumatized by witnessing something externally.” It was the closest thing to a legitimate concept of what could be bothering Anki that Brendle could think of. Of course, I’m probably way off the mark.
“She is the only surviving Luthian she knows of. She survived a raid that destroyed her ship and crash landed on a moon, she avoided being killed by Crase despite his best effort, and she’s mourning the loss of Carista after discovering the possibility of something existing darker even than the Greshian Empire.
She’s gone through a lot and it is bound to have an impact on her.”
“Maybe,” Brendle said. “But until she’s ready to talk about it, I’m afraid any ideas we have are nothing more than a shot in the dark.”
“At least you’re trying,” Deis said. “That has to count for something.”
“You would think,” Brendle replied sadly.
“She does not appreciate your concern?”
Brendle shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. I just think she’s in denial about anyone being capable of helping her, or that she needs help to get through this.”
Deis sat at the console across from Brendle and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is commendable what you’re doing, but sometimes the reluctance of the one in need is a louder cry for help than they would like to admit.”
Brendle smiled. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”
Deis leaned back against the console and winked. “Never,” he replied, causing both of them to laugh.
“Well, I’m glad we were able to clarify that,” Brendle replied. “Thank you for talking me through this. I was driving myself crazy keeping this to myself.”
Deis nodded. “That’s what friends are for.”
“Family,” Brendle retorted.
Deis smiled and nodded.
6
Hespha
Fire licked the atmosphere in the fireplace of the home Hespha once shared with T’anoi. The high stone walls felt like a prison to her as she riffled through another file, skimming over years of research and development the she either already knew or had no need to know. None of it mattered; none of it matched what she was looking for. Instead, time was wasted as her life spun more out of control. How that spin played out in her mood and her relationships with other people was what shocked her the most. She thought she was over him, or at least to the point where his death was inconsequential. She thought that maybe it was guilt that made her isolated and angry, but her obsessive nature was the driving force behind her, always. It was one of the things which drew T’anoi to her initially. That and the fact they were near-equals intellectually. My, how things have changed, she thought, restraining herself from tearing the sheets into pieces and tossing them into the fire.