A police bot stood guard in front of the quarry, and raised to a height of two feet as it approached her.
“Make sure they don’t go anywhere,” Liza ordered the droid. “Don’t hurt them, just keep them here.”
She wasn’t sure if Hawk could override her command with his magic, but thus far, it didn’t seem so. Being able to tap into the memory of every hybrid who had once lived her had given her great power in Boone. Her plan to get rid of Oriana had gone well, though she hated doing that to Tray. Since then, things had gone awry. She took solace in the fact that she hadn’t killed anyone, but she’d injured her brother, and he was afraid of her. That hurt the most.
“I will make this right, Kerris. I will fix you,” Liza promised, looking over her shoulder as she walked to the bell tower. She felt strongest there. Safest. She could see danger coming. Hawk had begged her to reach out to Oriana and ask for help, and she figured it might buy her some forgiveness. As long as she could blame the droids for what happened, Oriana’s Captain would never know there was an indiscretion to forgive.
Bracing herself, she thought of what she might ask for. She wished she could reach out to Sky, but Sky wasn’t in her mind. The dragon was. It blocked her ability to communicate with Sky. She’d done enough damage to Tray and Saskia. She couldn’t see into Danny in any meaningful way, and because she couldn’t see in, she worried it meant she wouldn’t get out again if she forced a connection.
“I know I can talk to Amanda,” Liza murmured, taking a deep breath and climbing the spiral ramp. “I can do this. Just ask for help.”
She felt a breeze in the Spirit Realm, then a rush of emotions. Oriana was returning with the promised armada. Liza felt the souls onboard, and she heard them call her destroyer.
The Dome rumbled and the gate came crashing down, a plume of dust clouding her view.
Kerris, did you blow up the gate? Liza didn’t know if she’d let him into her mind, or if Hawk would let her in. But she didn’t see Kerris or Hawk, and knew the armada had arrived. The people she’d planned to ask for help had come to hunt her down.
“Droids, block the gate. Shield the gate!” Liza shouted. She’d left almost fifty there from before, but the explosion had taken out the front line. She didn’t know what would happen if she turned this land twice—if eliminating the threat would only serve to bring back the Praet and the Xentu. But she had droids, she could conjure weapons, she could make a stand and negotiate for her brother’s life.
Turning her hand, she saw the pistol that had fallen from Saskia’s memory.
“Stupid, save your energy,” she muttered. “If you disappear for three days again to recharge, Kerris won’t be here when you get back.”
Her own words hurt her heart because she knew Kerris didn’t want to be here.
34
When Oriana lifted off, all Danny could think was that he didn’t want to land her again. Not until they were home. It was a short trek from the jungle back to the plateau, shaky because they were entirely reliant on the unfocused thrust of the grav-drive through the new avalan ports. Danny’s stomach somersaulted and he grabbed the nearest handrail to steady himself. Instead of moving smoothly through the air, the ship tottered and tripped, as if it were creek-walking on wobbly stepping stones. The grav-drive made small pockets of negative gravity to hold them and they weren’t moving fast enough for the wings to catch the wind and glide. But it worked! They were in the air! Tray had taken the engineering console next to Danny on the bridge.
“Where is home?” Tray had whispered, scanning fervently for Quin. Danny wanted so badly to take his brother home, but Sky wouldn’t let them, and she was the one holding their ship aloft. He felt her lowering the ship against his will. He wasn’t in control; he was just her eyes, telling her which way to push and how hard.
The plateau outside the city was eerily quiet. The drones were at rest, blending in when the cracked wall of the Dome. The gate was sealed with the droids inside. No greeter bot came out. When Kraven tried to roll a grenade in, it bounced off a barrier. The Nelka lined the gate with explosives.
Danny covered his ears. Sky sucked air through her pursed lips, grabbing a hold of Honor’s hand, pained by the destruction of her beloved city. The plan was simple—Sky would get Honor to Hawk to provide medical assistance. Kraven and Danny would hold the gate for their escape. Saskia and Dex would deactivate the drones, with remote help from Tray and Madricka, who were staying on the ship.
The explosion took out only a small subsection of the gate, leaving the Dome in tact. The gaping hole led into the loading dock where droids were packed five deep, blocking their path forward.
“Grenade!” Kraven shouted, rolling a ball-shaped explosive toward the droids. When it went off, most of the energy was deflected outward back toward Oriana, making the avalan on the hull ring. The droids followed the shockwave, moving closer to the gate.
“Confirmed! They are producing an energy shield,” Dex shouted.
“But they aren’t attacking. Neither are the drones,” Danny observed. “In the past, if we showed any kind of violence toward a droid, a drone came to its defense.”
“What’s the shield frequency?” Tray asked over comms. The Nelka comms were ribbon devices, but compatible with his Feather. The devices were charged. This was the last stop. “We’re going to try something. You’ll have about ten seconds to blast through and take cover.”
“Ten seconds,” Kraven echoed, motioning Dex to prepare another grenade. “Go!”
Suddenly, the droids let loose a high-frequency pitch. Danny clamped his hands over his ears. The grenade exploded, blasting a path through the droids, and Kraven pushed Danny through the loading dock. They didn’t stop until they were through to the main courtyard of the city and the drones were behind them.
“Split!” Dex hollered, veering east toward drone control. Kraven pulled Danny down a central street and Danny pointed to the bell tower.
“If Liza’s holding them hostage, she’ll go there. That’s where she feels safe,” Danny said.
“She’d be trapped,” Kraven said, shaking his head.
“She can teleport,” Danny pointed out.
“We can’t,” Kraven argued. “We’ll be trapped.”
The droids closed the gap left by the grenade, sparks visible on the broken bodies as the energy field reestablished. So much for holding the gate clear.
“Tray, can you hear me?” Danny said, tapping his Feather. He waited, then looked at Kraven. “Saskia, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” she replied.
“We’ve lost contact with Oriana,” Danny told her. “Kraven and I are checking the bell tower.”
“Copy,” she replied.
For all the times he’d circled the building, Danny hadn’t been inside the bell tower yet. He felt a twinge in his chest just looking at it, as though entering would be an unforgivable sin. The sight of the spiral ramp leading up to the top made him dizzy. The light Kraven shone cast no shadows. The place was empty.
“They’re not here,” Kraven said.
“Hawk!” Danny hollered. His voice echoed. He tapped his Feather. “Hawk, can you hear me?”
Sucking up his hesitation, he raced up the ramp. It could take hours to search the city, but he felt certain he’d find something here. And when he stepped into the open air balcony at the top level, his certainty turned to dread. Three droids stood in triangle formation with Liza sitting on the ground between them, crying.
“Liza. Are you okay?” Danny asked, dropping to one knee. For all the blame he’d placed on her, she looked like a victim of the machines. Her clothing was disheveled, her skin grayish and covered with goose bumps.
“We’ve found the destroyer. Dex, what is your progress?” Danny heard Kraven say behind him.
“Liza, do you know what’s going on with the droids?” Danny asked gently, scooting closer. One of the droids extended an electrical pole threateningly. “Do you know why they attacked Oriana?
Do you know what’s going on?”
Liza whimpered and rubbed her cheek on her knee. “Kerris is hurt.”
“What about Hawk? Do you know where he is?” Danny asked.
Liza nodded and hugged her knees tighter. “If I tell you where they are, will you help Kerris, too?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that,” Danny agreed.
Liza looked over Danny’s shoulder at Kraven, then dropped her chin to her knee, quietly deciding whether to trust them. “They’re in the quarry,” she finally confessed.
Kraven relayed the message. He hung back, staying inside the tower, where he could easily duck behind a wall if the droids became violent. Danny wasn’t sure what the range on the shocker pole was, but he didn’t guess it was the droids only weapon.
“Thank you,” Danny said. “What about these droids? Can you get past them? Can you teleport past them and get to me?”
“I’m too weak. Too weak to heal them,” she cried, fresh tears falling. Her ginger hair fell over her eyes, and her little body quivered.
“You’re a healer, too?” Danny asked. So much of the Panoptica and hybrid stories were shrouded in mystery and mythology, but in everything he’d heard, an individual would have a single set of powers. Liza was a healer, teleporter, mind reader, and who knew what else. “Is that why Hawk has been able to eat without being sick?”
Liza nodded. “He still won’t eat meat. But he can if he has to.”
“That is generous of you, Liza,” Danny praised.
“She’s still a destroyer, Captain,” Kraven growled. “A good deed for another of her kind does not absolve her of crimes against ours.”
Danny sucked in his cheeks. Getting Liza on their side was his best chance of walking out of here, and Kraven wasn’t helping.
“Liza, can you walk past the droids?” Danny asked.
“He’s going to hurt me,” Liza sniffled, glaring at Kraven, then crumbling in sadness. “He came here to hurt me. The droids are protecting me.”
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Danny asked. They knew where Hawk was and they could help Kerris. Danny’s mission was complete.
Liza buried her face in her knees again, weeping.
“You don’t have to be alone,” Danny said. “Come with me.”
“To a city?” she cried. “It’s not safe. He knows what happens when I try to live among people.” She pointed to Kraven, then wiped her tear-soaked cheeks against her open palm.
“There’s a place called Elysia. There are other spirit-kind there,” Danny said, his chest tightening at the promise he’d just made—not just that he’d bring her to Quin, but to Terrana. He had no idea how to get to Elysia by physical path; that was why its existence amounted to mythology. He assumed the Elysians would make contact once they sensed her presence, but didn’t know if they would accept her or treat her well. He didn’t know their rules or customs, but somehow he figured, if Amanda likened Liza to an Elysian, then it was her best hope of finding a place where she fit in.
“Can they help me?” Liza asked, standing up. She leaned on one of the droids, like a child hiding behind her parent. “Can they help me bring the others back? I want to undo what I did her. I want to show Kerris that I’m not a destroyer.”
“You’re talking about bringing back the dead,” Kraven gasped, stepping out for just a moment, then hiding again.
Liza nodded at Kraven, then looked hopefully at Danny. “Can they help me?”
“I don’t know. But you can ask,” Danny said. He’d already promised more than he could rightfully deliver. “Come with me.”
He opened his arms and Liza ran past the droids, leaping into his embrace.
The quarry! Sky couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to look there first. It made sense Hawk would run there. It was the one place he knew the protocol droids didn’t enter. Not that any of the droids were working according to programming.
“Hawk?” Sky hollered. She’d tried her Feather, but after so many hours guessed his Virp would be dead.
“We’re in here!” Hawk called back.
Sky’s heart somersaulted in relief, and she didn’t see the police bot crossing to intercept her. Honor grabbed her arm, and shot the bot, blasting the upper half to bits with her energy weapon. That was the only resistance they encountered.
“Oh, Hawk,” Sky murmured, startled by the blood and blisters on his face. Spirit spun in circles, and her throat closed. Honor caught her around the waist and forced her mouth open. Sky tipped her head back, resting it on Honor’s shoulder, fighting to catch her breath.
“We have to help him. She’ll kill him,” Hawk said in Rocanese, his arm hooked around Kerris’ chest.
“Trade, Hawk. Honor doesn’t speak Rocanese,” Sky reminded him. She stayed by the door, grav-gun drawn, pretending that she needed to keep guard while Honor assessed their wounds. Just looking at the pair of them stirred Spirit, and she knew the wounds went beyond the natural.
“First and second degree burns. No lacerations. Bruising and swelling at the eye,” Honor reported, kneeling over the two men. “Flavia, is there water in here? We’ll treat the burns with Bara leaf here, and then handle the bleeding when we get back to the ship.”
“We’re cut off from the ship until we deactivate the droids,” Sky said, stepping closer, knowing that with both men injured, she’d need to help move one. But every step forward came with a wave of vertigo.
“Bébé? Get out. You have to get out of here fast, before she realizes you’ve come. Before she takes what you are!” Hawk cried.
“She was the one who told us you were here,” Sky explained, glancing out the door. A janitor bot had come to clean up the remains of the police bot. That was one bot still following its primary directive. “What did she do to you?”
The ground shook and Honor bent over Kerris, protecting him from falling debris.
“Are the droids attacking?” Honor asked.
“No, it’s Kerris,” Hawk replied. “He’s in pain, and that makes things shake.”
Sky shifted uncomfortably, realizing that Hawk had just responded to a question that had been asked in Lanvarian without hearing a translation of it. But he’d responded in Trade.
Kerris keened in pain and Hawk stroked his hair, whispering in his ear. “I know she is fire, but Sky will not burn you,” he reassured. “Close those eyes.”
Kerris’ fist clamped around Hawk’s arm, and though Kerris wasn’t speaking out loud, Hawk responded to him as if he heard something.
“Sky. So that’s your name,” Honor said, giving her a wink.
“Sorry,” Hawk mouthed the words in Sky’s general direction. His eyes were closed, his face swollen to the point where he could hardly open them.
“It’s all right. I trust her,” Sky said. “Are we taking them both back to the wagon for treatment?”
“That’s a good point,” Honor frowned. “I don’t think a destroyer would be well received by my people. Especially one whose pain can shake a building.”
“You can’t leave him here with her,” Hawk said, lying next to Kerris, wrapping an arm and leg around him. “Look at what she did to him. Her intentions were pure, but look what she did!”
“She killed the Lansing,” Kerris croaked. When he spoke aloud, it was Lanvarian.
“We suspected,” Honor whispered, backing away from him, unable to mask her tears. “They’ve been missing so long, but we didn’t want to believe.”
“She killed the Dioda and the Gavameti,” Kerris continued. “You can’t leave me with her.”
“She’s a mind reader, Kerris. You are the one causing earthquakes,” Sky pointed out. Even as a spirit-carrier, Sky was shunned. There was no place safe for their kind.
“She’s more than that, but memory reading is where things go wrong, because she changes the memories,” Kerris replied, thumbing over the tattoo on his wrist. “When I met my wife, I was in love from day one. Liza wanted me to have her. Wanted to make sure it worked out. I didn’
t know at first. I didn’t realize… until it started affecting all the women in the village. And men. Anyone who would dare to step between me and Nalia.
“Even though they were fighting each other, someone realized that they were all connected to us. The elders accused me of sorcery. Everything I had ever built for that tribe was burned to the ground. The more Liza tried to fix it, the worse it got. Nalia’s family reclaimed her, but because of Liza, Nalia… she died trying to get back to me. Her legs were broken, and she kept running. Crawling. She couldn’t stop until she got to me. And because of Liza, I don’t know if the love she felt for me was real. At the end, I knew it wasn’t, but at the beginning, before Liza got involved… what if it was never there? Just another gift that she wanted to give me.”
Sky exchanged a look with Honor, but Honor was in tears for her lost family. “Water,” she said hoarsely. “To activate the Bara leaf and heal their burns. Let’s start with water.”
The Captain carried Liza in his arms, and she felt safe. His good intentions radiated over her like a warm breeze, blocking out the noise of Kraven’s evil wishes. Her three droids followed them down the ramp as they descended from the bell tower.
Kerris, are they helping you? Liza asked. Her brother didn’t answer. Either Hawk was shielding him, or Kerris was angry with her. It was probably both. Saddened by the thought, she tilted her face closer to Danny’s for comfort. His thick, coarse beard felt gross against her skin, but from his lips seeped gentle words. They rippled through the Spirit Realm in a way human words weren’t meant to do.
He’s praying, Kerris explained. Liza’s body tensed at the sound of her brother’s voice in her head, but she nearly cried for joy, because he was talking to her. It’s an altered state, like meditation. It’s how non-hybrids tap into the energy of the other realm. Dad taught me meditation, when he realized I was blind. I was weak.
Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4) Page 30