Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “Pain,” Saskia gasped. “Pain.

  “Pain,” Tray echoed, kneeling on the ground with her. “It’ll pass. It has to. It’s just a memory.”

  Liza knew exactly why Kerris had come running, and she was angry with herself for letting jealousy take hold. Tray wasn’t interested in her, and her brief attempts to muster even harmless flirtation had resulted in serious backlash. The man was attached to his father, and tapping into the Tray’s love for his father only showed her how twisted and terrifying that love was. His memories unnerved her.

  Despite the obvious discomfort of the others, Danny insisted on formalizing the shared meal. They washed their hands and ate with forks. The routine calmed Tray’s thoughts enough for him to take up conversation again, although watching Saskia lean on him was doing nothing to quell Liza’s jealousy.

  “Thank you so much for sharing this food. You have no idea what a gift this is,” Tray gushed, his enthusiasm for the meal washing over her. He smiled, but she felt his hunger—everyone’s hunger—and knew the few birds they’d brought were inadequate.

  “Why is he crying?” Liza asked, pointing to Hawk. Hawk brooded over the dead birds laid in a line on the cutting board. Kerris’ dull knife moved up and down, separating muscle from bone. Liza could feel the residual glow of her healing efforts on Hawk’s aura and she pushed a little more energy his way to keep him from heaving.

  “His stomach doesn’t handle animal meat all that well,” Tray explained. “He probably won’t eat.”

  Liza shivered, seeing a meal unfold in Tray’s mind. She rubbed her hands together, and nearly jumped out of her skin when something appeared there. From nowhere, she’d conjured a handful of orange and yellow root vegetables. She’d pulled the food from his memory.

  Kerris?

  Her brother looked up from his cutting, and she showed him the vegetables in her hand.

  Did I just bring his memory to life? she asked.

  Keep calm, he advised. Can you make it go away again?

  Why would I do that?

  “We have root vegetables if he prefers,” Liza said quietly, holding out the long, crooked roots to Tray. The cutting board that Kerris used was the only serving surface they’d brought. Not that they had plates to go around. They’d been gone so long, that everything small had been pilfered by looters. Liza had made bowls and pots from the avalan, but nothing more than two people needed, and nothing fancy like Tray saw in his mind.

  “You have carrots here,” Tray said, tears of happiness coming to his eyes. He squeezed Saskia, but she was weak from Liza’s jealousy-fueled memory lashing. Tray reached for one, and Liza held her breath, half-expecting the carrots to disappear in a puff of smoke.

  “Non,” Hawk whispered, tugging Tray’s elbow, looking aghast at the carrots. He knew her secret. She wondered if he’d seen power like that before. If he had power. She’d created something physical, and Tray touched it. He ate it. The way he pursed his lips suggested the taste was off, but he didn’t spit it out.

  “Do those carrots grow near here?” Danny asked. “We desperately need to restock our food.”

  “Kerris can take you hunting,” Liza suggested. “He’s a skilled hunter.”

  Kerris gave her a look, but Liza raised her brow and smiled at him.

  “The carrots were gathered from far away,” Kerris said, his hands trembling with emotion. He spoke mostly to Danny. “We haven’t lived here in a long time. We traveled. We looked for other places to call home. When you’ve lived in a city, it’s difficult to fit in with the nomads. But we tried. We tried to fit in. I wanted my sister to have a family.”

  “That’s very noble of you,” Danny said, taking a slice of meat when Kerris offered it, then handing it to his brother. “How long have you been back here?”

  “A few months. My wife… I had a wife.” Kerris broke down, but before Liza could comfort him and shield his emotions, she felt Hawk do it. Hawk kissed Kerris’ temple and Kerris dropped his knife, laying his head in Hawk’s lap. For the first time in her life, Liza watched her brother cry without feeling his heart break from the inside out. For the first time, she imagined a life where she could share the responsibility of keeping her brother’s emotions from bringing down the walls. Having just one person to help her would change everything.

  “Kerris is reluctant to trust again. We’ve lost so much,” Liza whispered, settling next to Tray. “It was all I could do to convince him to come meet you.”

  “These birds taste amazing,” Tray said, chomping on the smoked meat, his exuberance radiating, his energy increasing with every bite. “How did you season these?”

  “A little salt,” Liza shrugged, simultaneously wanting to lick the juice from his fingers and smack the food lust from his mind.

  “What else?” Danny asked. “It hasn’t been that long since we ran out of salt. This has to be more than salt.”

  “That’s just how wild birds taste,” Liza said. “They’re not like Dome birds at all.”

  She was five when they started eating wild-caught food. The only reason she knew Dome birds tasted different was because Kerris would go on about it. The only food she remembered and missed from her childhood was cotton candy, and she had a sinking feeling that it was better in her memory. Although, now that she’d learned she could conjure memories, she might just test that.

  “Do they fly into the city?” Tray asked.

  “No. Kerris goes out to the forest to hunt,” Liza said, looking at Kerris. His eyes were closed, as were Hawk’s. She wondered if they were talking privately, telepathically. She hadn’t had any trouble understanding Rocanese when she’d dipped into his memories, but Kerris wasn’t like her.

  “Have the drones ever tried to stop you?” Tray asked.

  Liza shrugged again. “They don’t like when I forget my shoes, but … I haven’t really tried to leave the city. When Kerris goes, I just lie in bed and try not to miss him. Kerris? Are you okay?”

  “It is possible to leave on foot,” Danny said, exchanging a look with his brother. “That bodes well for us.”

  “Great, I’ll change shoes. We can walk home,” Tray commented, giving Saskia a nudge. Saskia didn’t seem amused by the joke.

  “Would you like to bury the bones?” Liza asked Hawk. She’d caught a glimpse of a memory—a young bird dying in his hands. He’d buried it under a tree. The thought of the ritual seemed to calm him, and Liza figured she and Kerris could dig up the bird bones later if they needed to make tools. She wanted him off of Kerris so she could feel him again.

  “Perhaps later,” Tray said. Lowering his voice, he quickly translated the conversation for Hawk, and Hawk nodded, his tension easing, even as his hunger grew. The birds turned his stomach, and the conjured carrots frightened him.

  “Is there a central location where the drones are controlled?” Tray asked.

  “We haven’t explored much. As kids, we only knew so many places,” Liza shrugged. “Now… we’re still trying to figure out what comes next. Living here was supposed to be temporary. Then Kerris dug the well.”

  “You did?” Danny smiled. “That’s a lot of work.”

  “He does so much,” Liza agreed, petting her brother’s shoulder.

  “Maybe you could take me around,” Danny suggested, patting Kerris’ leg. “Tell me what you remember of this place. We could record some of the history while we still have living witnesses.”

  “What could you possibly want to know about this place?” Kerris moaned, kicking reflexively and backing away from the circle.

  “What was your life like here? Before the disaster,” Danny asked. “Did you go to school?”

  Kerris rubbed his hands together and Liza linked his arm, looking to Hawk for help. He told her stories about Boone sometimes, but it was a sensitive topic. “I did. Liza never had a chance. We were kidnapped by the Praet.”

  Tray twitched and Liza’s fingers stung from the memory those words stirred in him.

  “Did you learn ab
out the Praet in school?” Danny asked carefully.

  “We learned about nothing else from birth,” Liza spoke up. “Our lives revolved around the war between the Praet and the Xentu.”

  “Did you learn about the history of the Domes?” Danny asked. “Did they teach Trade language in your schools? Or anything about the rockets they could see from here?”

  “No. We never learned about anything outside of the never-ending war,” Kerris said, rubbing his cheek on Liza’s head.

  “What started it?” Danny asked.

  “I went to a Xentu school, and we learned that the Praet started it,” Kerris said. He seemed relieved, like he’d been waiting for years to share his story. “But when I was captured by the Praet, they told me it was a lie. They said the Xentu were terrorists and the Praet held the rightful government. They said I was meant to fight for them.”

  The buildings shook with the echoes of Kerris’ emotion, the force so strong, one of the roofs collapsed. Liza tightened her grip on Kerris, but she felt a mental slam so hard, she felt like her soul was about to be knocked from her body.

  “I don’t think the city’s going to survive much more of these quakes,” Tray said, covering his face as a cloud of debris drifted toward them. “You two are probably used to them by now.”

  Kerris shook his head. “They’re not natural. The earth isn’t shaking. The city is. The Xentu made weapons to bring the enemy down.”

  “Kerris,” Liza warned. She could feel her brother’s heart aching now, like a hot blast through the Spirit Realm. He wanted to tell his story, and he was going to give them away!

  “The Praet wanted the weapon,” Liza said, hoping her vagueness came across as a child’s recollection and not an attempt at deception. “They killed our parents to possess it. They made me watch; I watched my parents get beheaded. They took the weapon, they triggered it, and now everyone is gone.”

  She looked at her brother, willing him not to add more. The Praet had done so much damage in such a short time, convincing them their powers had no value outside of the destruction of their enemies. She and Kerris were the weapons. They had destroyed the city. There was no one else left to blame.

  “Then we should find this weapon and disarm it,” Tray declared, looking to Saskia for confirmation.

  Kerris shuddered, a mental image of his limbs being torn from his body blasting from his mind to hers. “Disarm?” he repeated.

  “Right now, our only other option is to leave on foot before this weapon destroys the city. We can’t stay here. We can’t,” Tray said.

  His thoughts crescendoed. His desire to escape sounded like shouting in her mind. The thunder rolled, and rain poured through new cracks in the Dome.

  “We have to go,” Liza begged, tugging her brother’s arm. She couldn’t handle the group with Kerris in this fragile state. There were too many minds, too many thoughts, and too much pain.

  “Wait!” Tray called. “Weren’t you going to help us hunt for food?”

  “Come with us,” Danny added. “We’re going back to Quin, and if we’re going on foot, we could use a good hunter. People who know the land.”

  Liza shielded her brother and he shielded her. Huddling together, they hurried away from the assault of unguarded thoughts from Oriana’s crew.

  22

  “That was weird. That was weird, right?” Tray asked, exchanging a look with Saskia. It was only after she lifted her head that he realized she’d been leaning on him through the entire meal. His arm felt cold without her weight on it.

  “Not at all,” Danny said, consolidating the food onto the cutting board the siblings had left behind. “When I have a panic attack, the first thing you do is separate me from the trigger.”

  “He was opening up to you. But that quake seemed to throw him,” Tray said.

  “It sounds like the quakes are related to the weapon that killed his family,” Danny agreed.

  “I wonder whether the weapon is supposed to make the ground shake or if it’s malfunctioning,” Saskia spoke up, sucking in her emotions, and feeling for her stunner.

  “Anything they know will be colored by propaganda. They didn’t know anything about the Terrana-Caldori war or the history of the Domes. Even Hawk’s people retained enough history to keep Trade alive,” Danny mulled, tapping his fingernail against his teeth.

  “Liza saw her parents die,” Tray added. “It’s no wonder they hid from us for so long. No wonder they attacked Saskia and Sky rather than stay and talk.”

  “Poor kids. We should find them again and ask them to come with us,” Danny sighed.

  “If we bring home any more strays, Quin won’t let us through the gate,” Saskia quipped, motioning to Hawk.

  Hawk’s hands shook as he dug into the dirt with his fingers and whispered a eulogy over the bones. It was strange how he’d latched on to Kerris—the one most responsible for the death of the birds—but perhaps he’d finally accepted that some people ate birds. A bot rolled up, a light flashing, but it didn’t fine Hawk for digging in the street. It seemed to be watching—observing the burial rights.

  “I wasn’t planning to bring them through the gate,” Tray said, although in truth, he didn’t have a plan anymore. The longer they were missing, the more time he had to second guess himself on how quickly he could generate travel papers. “Where’s Amanda?”

  “Bell tower.” Danny tapped his Feather and looked up the side of the building. “Amanda, are you coming down?”

  There was a long pause. “Maybe the quake killed the comms again.”

  “I hear voices,” Amanda finally replied.

  “Stay there. I’ll come to you,” Danny said, dashing into the building. Tray wasn’t sure whether to stay or go.

  “Did she have a knife?” he asked Saskia.

  Saskia shrugged and rubbed her face. Tray wasn’t sure if she’d eaten, and despite the deliciousness of the birds, he wasn’t entirely confident they wouldn’t all get sick from the wild meat.

  “Hawk. Let’s go,” Tray called.

  “Qua,” Hawk stammered, stumbling to his knees, wiping his hands on his pants. “Was I bad?”

  “No,” Tray sighed. He was glad to hear Hawk speaking Trade, but frustrated by this new fear that seemed to permeate every interaction since he’d woken from the coma. Tray had told him he wasn’t a slave, but he didn’t act like he believed. He needed Tray to be a friend. A brother. “The rest of us ate. Let’s get you fed. We’ll divvy up what’s left, and then Saskia and I can go hunting for more.”

  “Maybe we can get charge back into one of the weapons,” Saskia said. “Get some more wild birds.”

  Hawk took a moment to process the words, his eyes twitching, his fingers scratching at his clothes. “Hot,” he said.

  “You can cool off in the rain,” Tray suggested. “Drink your water.”

  “Tastes funny,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose, but obediently sipping from his cup.

  “Of course it does. It came from a well,” Tray laughed. He started walking. If Hawk didn’t follow, Danny would catch him when he came by with Amanda.

  Kerris was so scared, he couldn’t breathe. It felt like his body was going to shatter, he was shaking so hard. Every building he passed rattled in response. He brought Liza to the old candy shop, because there were no ceilings on this end of town—a collapse wouldn’t be as dangerous. She seemed to be going through a shock as well.

  “Kerris, what’s wrong?” she asked, kneeling in front of him, fussing over his messy hair, pretending she didn’t have tears of her own running down her cheeks.

  “Why would they give a weapon a conscience?” he sobbed.

  “You’re not a weapon,” Liza reminded him. “The Praet tried to make you one and they failed. You are a good man. You’re noble, like Danny said. You take good care of me.”

  Kerris leaned his forehead against hers, drawing strength from the bond they shared. “Did I scare you?” he asked.

  “No, I know your fears too well. It’s
them. It’s hard being in a crowd,” Liza said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “They don’t protect their minds. There are thoughts flying everywhere. We need to get Hawk alone and ask for his help.”

  “We need to get them out of the city before they realize we’re the weapons they mean to disarm,” Kerris said, raking his hands through his hair. “They’ll hunt us with the drones. The drones don’t let you leave the city. They make me hunt alone, because they know I’ll come back for you.”

  “Or you’re just better at sneaking past them,” she quipped. “Hawk’s people want to disable the drones. I say let them. They just want to go.” Liza scooted close to him, rocking slowly in a way the she knew would calm his nerves. Kerris hunched his shoulders. He knew she’d feel him shielding his mind, but given the circumstances, she wouldn’t press. “I don’t understand why Oriana couldn’t leave the first time they tried.”

  “Because I stopped them,” Kerris confessed.

  “You!” Liza cried, jumping to her feet. “You’re always giving me a hard time about moving clouds and air masses and you held them down! Is that what’s wrong with the weather?”

  The pouring rain and unseasonable heat were side effects of his meddling. And hers. She liked seeing the wind on Tray’s face, and sometimes the only breezes were the ones she made. They couldn’t control the weather, but they could mess with it.

  “You were on the ship when they tried to go. The drones tracked you there. You were going to leave me behind,” Kerris accused.

  “I was not. I wasn’t even near the ship!” she shouted.

  “The drones were swarming around Oriana at the time,” Kerris said.

  “Hawk was on Oriana,” she argued. “Maybe they tracked him.”

  “Your whole body has been disappearing into the Spirit Realm recently. Even if you didn’t reform on Oriana, you were there, and the drones knew it. What do you think would happen to you if your spirit form got carried away on a spaceship?”