Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  “Use him—but don’t let this thing get out of control. We can work this to our advantage, but I don’t want a circus,” the Minister instructed as Unipoesa escorted Li to the news conference.

  When he first exposed the young man to the bright lights and cameras, Unipoesa expected him to act much like he always did—cold, calculating, and palpably dangerous. Instead, he became someone else—a smiling, charismatic, self-assured champion—as if he had planning for this moment all along.

  “I choose to serve the Starways. I will fight to defend the rights and liberties of all Sentient kind!” Li declared to the dizzy swarm of reporters clamoring past the safety bar to nab his picture.

  In a few weeks he had completely won over the media. Soon afterward the funding came pouring in, and Unipoesa’s pleas to remove Li from public light were drowned in the sea of flashing lights and exchanged credits.

  “In the end he beat us at our own game. He was always smarter than us, always one step ahead, just like we designed him. So I did the only thing I could. I protected Tarsha.”

  It came at a heavy cost. Tarsha had always scored higher than Li, and her aptitude put her leagues ahead of him as a potential commander. It surprised Unipoesa that she wasn’t the first he decided to kill, but years later he figured it out. Saving Tarsha for last was Li’s best means of torturing her—and him.

  In saving Tarsha, Unipoesa didn’t just break her—he damaged her beyond repair.

  “You’re a disgrace to that uniform, candidate, and to all the people who have wasted their time and money training you. Why did you bother evacuating the ground teams? You needed to drop your missiles! What the hell were you thinking?” he screamed in her face. “Know when you’re defeated!”

  Tarsha had lost her thirty-eighth straight battle. He had rigged the Endgame so it was impossible to win no matter what she did. The enemy’s constantly regenerating resources overwhelmed her handicapped forces.

  She hadn’t slept in days, and the latest string of losses hit her hard. Having already lost five kilos over the course of two weeks, she had started washing obsessively. In the end he sent medical teams to pull her out of the showers and keep her from scrubbing herself raw. It was time to deal the final blow.

  He brought in Li.

  “But Sir, we weren’t scheduled to battle for seven more months—” Tarsha said as Li sat opposite her on the game console.

  “Your final is now. I’d suggest you pay better attention to your front lines this time.”

  He leaned over and whispered into her ear. “You’re weak. You’re pathetic. You’re no match for Li. Let’s get this over with.”

  The fear in her eyes was raw and wild, and he saw the fissures along which her composure had begun to crack. She didn’t move. Not when he initiated the game, not when Li won, and not when he screamed in her face—

  “Know when you’re defeated!”

  —and threatened to have her iced. She was done for.

  “I saved her the only way I knew I could. I broke her so you would have to make her a Sleeper. As far as Li was concerned, she was dead.”

  Unipoesa wiped his eyes. “Since it was my fault, it was only fair that I watch her be put to Sleep. But you’d never told me how brutal the transition was...”

  When he closed his eyes he could still see her strapped to the table, her skull splayed open as the doctors struggled to implant her with new memories and a substitute personality. Her eyes remained open the entire time, unseeing, as tears slid down her colorless cheeks. Tarsha Leone, the brilliant but sensitive warrior, was systematically laid to rest and reborn as the foul-mouthed, insolent Scabber named Agracia Waychild.

  “It was one of the worst moments I’ve ever known, but back then I was blissfully ignorant. I convinced myself that she was just an experiment, a means to an end like the rest of the students, but that I had done well by saving her life. But it’s different now, knowing who she is. Knowing that...”

  When he finished the sentence, his voice broke on the words. “...she’s as good as dead.”

  Unipoesa’s hands had found their way under the Minister’s bed, away from the guards’ eyes, and wrapped themselves around the life support cords feeding into the frail body of his commander. His muscles tensed, begging to tear the lifeline in two.

  “It didn’t have to be like this,” Unipoesa said, firming his grip. “You destroyed the best parts of me.”

  He saw the monitors fluctuate. Numbers and figures changed, though he didn’t know what they meant. Unipoesa looked at the Minister, and this time he saw someone different.

  “What I did was wrong. And now I will have to answer for it.”

  Minister Razar’s life support cords dangled beneath the bed still intact as Admiral Damon Unipoesa walked away.

  IN THE BRIEF TIME IT took for the soldiers and Admiral Unipoesa to exchange words, the patient in the intensive care unit opened his eyes. The monitors captured the moment, though the doctors who later reviewed the anomaly could not account for what the patient had said. With a swollen tongue and cracked lips he spoke only one word. Jaeia Kyron, who had remained out of sight but observed all that had transpired, heard that word.

  JETTA RODE SLUMPED over her wolf, barely conscious but still hanging on with her one good arm. She had lost a considerable amount of blood but had thus far managed to keep Triel’s attention off of her with the threat of the approaching Lockheads. They reached the first rocky pass just as the sun began to creep over the mountains and suffuse the world in hues of yellow and orange. The moon, nearly full, retreated with the stars. Triel, realizing that Jetta could go no farther, guided their party into the shelter of a stand of trees felled in a rockslide.

  Jetta mumbled incoherently as Triel helped the wolf dismount the rider.

  “Are all humans this stupid?” Triel asked the wolf she had begun to think of as Gray Paw. He flicked his ears at her and licked her foot as she took a closer look at her friend.

  The ride had torn Jetta’s wound open further, but it remained within the scope of the Healer’s abilities. Still, something made her hesitate.

  Gray Paw whined and nudged Triel with his nose.

  “I can’t keep doing this.”

  With a frown the Healer opened Jetta’s uniform, placed her hands on her warm chest, and dipped below the barrier of her skin. Triel managed her wounds like she would for any other soldier but rushed through the parts Jetta’s body could take care of on its own. This time she didn’t indulge her curiosity, though Jetta’s biorhythm was greatly disturbed.

  “Feeling better?” Triel said as she withdrew and Jetta regained her senses. Before Triel could say anything more, Jetta was analyzing the position of the sun and their shelter under the fallen trees, her jade eyes flicking past Triel and onto more important matters.

  “This is good cover, but we have to keep moving,” Jetta said, slowly picking herself up off the ground. Surprise widened Jetta’s eyes when she realized that the Healer hadn’t fully restored her, but said nothing.

  “Are you hungry?” Jetta asked as Triel ducked out from underneath their shelter and made her way toward the boulders where her wolf stood sniffing the eastern winds. “I forgot I stashed two nutrition pills in my inner pocket.”

  Jetta produced a pill and held it out for Triel. It contained 3,600 calories and all the balanced nutrients and minerals required by a soldier in combat. It wasn’t exactly filling, but it was a lifesaver in the field when food was scarce or difficult to transport. Neither one of them had eaten properly in days, and it was the only source of nutrition they had left.

  Triel turned back to her, hugging herself as she tried to make sense of Jetta’s actions. It was the same scenario: Jetta was unquestionably protecting her and looking out for her while neglecting the most basic of her needs as a Prodgy.

  She took the pill without saying a word and walked away, mounting her wolf before Jetta had a chance to say anything.

  “Wait up!” Jetta shouted as she looked ar
ound for Gray Paw, who had wandered back down the trail.

  Triel didn’t wait. She let her wolf trot up the mountain slope, letting him find the best route through the trees and thicket. The northern mountains were cold and unforgiving, and glacial winds were already washing down from the slopes.

  Jetta finally did catch up, frustration etching her face with a scowl. “I’m not playing games.”

  “Neither am I,” Triel said, giving her wolf a touch of her heel.

  When Jetta caught up to her again, Triel didn’t give her a chance to ask questions. “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

  She didn’t have to look back to know that Jetta was still scowling at her. “No, but they do. I asked Gray Paw where this place was, and he seemed to understand. Let me pass so he can lead.”

  Triel pulled over on the narrow trail to allow Jetta’s wolf to take the lead. As Jetta’s aura brushed by, Triel was surprised to feel the underpinnings of deep hurt beneath her outward brooding.

  They traveled in silence until a hot and oily sensation crept into Triel’s belly. “I think the Lockheads are closer than we thought. I can feel their sickness.”

  “I know,” Jetta said, her voice firm and emotionless. “I’m aware.”

  Jetta didn’t acknowledge her further, and Triel didn’t have the energy to engage her. Even with the tension between them, she still trusted Jetta more than anyone.

  As they reached the first false summit, Triel felt Jetta’s thought patterns shift. To her surprise, Jetta turned to her and said, “Thanks for healing me. I didn’t realize how bad it was.”

  Triel held on tight as her wolf leapt from one boulder to the next. With no particular emotion,she replied, “It’s what I do.”

  Though the sun’s rays still filtered through the clouds, a light snow had begun to fall. Before the north wind picked up it had been tolerably cold, but now Triel found herself shivering uncontrollably, pressing her body into the wolf’s fur. They had ridden above the tree line and were traversing a sharp ridge along the saddle between two peaks, completely exposed to the elements. Spectacular as the view was, she couldn’t enjoy it. The sheer face of the mountain below made her forget all other worries as she clung desperately to her ride and concentrated on the wolf’s every step.

  “This reminds me of Tralora,” Jetta mumbled.

  Triel’s wolf stopped suddenly, but she was too cold and scared to look up. A warm jacket encircled her shoulders.

  “What’s going to keep you warm?” Triel asked as she pulled it tighter around her body.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Jetta said as she mounted her wolf and pressed on toward the peak.

  “Don’t worry about you?” Triel was tired of backing down. “Jetta, when you brought me back in the forest, what did you see?”

  Jetta was silent for a moment as her wolf struggled with a difficult section of the trail. “I saw you when you were younger.”

  It was clear she was holding back, but it didn’t matter. Triel knew that when she was on the brink of Falling, all of her darkest secrets became accessible. “If you saw any of my childhood then you know my worst fear. And you know what? I’m not afraid of you knowing that. I just wish you trusted me enough to allow me to see inside you and let me stay your friend.”

  But before Triel could elicit a response, gunshots exploded all around her.

  “Skucheka!” Jetta shouted. Her wolf reared wildly as a bullet ricocheted off a nearby rock.

  Triel didn’t see what happened to Jetta as her wolf turned and sprinted back toward the saddle. Without cover and weapons, their only chances of surviving were summiting, but there were four hundred meters between Triel and the top, and Jetta was headed in the opposite direction. She hung on for dear life as her wolf took the increasingly steep ridge in giant strides and leaps.

  Jetta! Triel cried silently as she looked back. For some reason Jetta had dismounted, and Gray Paw was now only a few meters behind them, struggling to make it over the pass with his packmate.

  “Jetta!” Triel shouted as she watched her friend drop down to avoid a spray of gunfire. She managed to find cover behind a boulder, but with the Lockheads pinning her down and steadily approaching, it wouldn’t last long.

  Triel’s wolf lost his purchase on the incline and careened backward. She screamed as they plummeted, the world a jumble of rocks, sharp pains, and snow.

  Then she slammed into something soft and warm. She tried to lift her head, but the world refused to orient itself. White teeth and pink gums wrapped around her face, smothering her with hot, panting breath. Her feet and legs bumped against rocks as snow slid down her pants and up her shirt. Was she falling again? She couldn’t tell anymore.

  Suddenly, the confusion of movement stopped. She opened her eyes to clusters of soft clouds and gentle snowfall. She could breathe again, but the breath that filled her lungs did not completely quench her hunger for air. When she looked around her, the wolves were pacing nervously on the ridge. White Neck was limping terribly but seemed otherwise okay. They had made it—but Jetta had not.

  Triel scrambled up on bruised hands and knees to look down toward the saddle. Jetta had emerged from behind her boulder, her arms held high in the sign of defeat as the Lockheads broke their own cover behind the tree line and approached with their weapons aimed at her heart. Triel had counted six of them when Jetta looked back at her.

  Suddenly she realized that it wasn’t Triel she was looking at but Gray Paw, who was watching carefully as if waiting for a sign.

  The Healer saw it unfold as if she was inside Jetta’s head, timing the entire event and calculating her next move. “Run,” she whispered.

  The next thing she knew was on the ground, hands pressed to her ears. Gray Paw threw back his head back and cried out, releasing a howl that shook the foundations of her being. It started out as a reverberating bass that seemed to emanate from somewhere beyond his massive black body. He quickly shifted his pitch, gaining momentum and volume until he struck a discordant high note in the most mournful cry she had ever heard. White Neck joined in, adding his voice and seeming to strengthen the howl tenfold. The chorus multiplied, reflecting off the mountains and scattering across the valley.

  As the wolves continued to howl, Triel could barely distinguish the rumbling that seized the mountain. When they stopped, the world was quaking beneath her.

  “Jetta!” she screamed as rocks shook loose from the slope below. The rockslide picked up debris and energy as it cascaded downwards, right into the path of Jetta and her enemies.

  Gray Paw shot down the mountain as Jetta scrambled up the path as fast as she could. The Lockheads were also clambering for cover, but it was too late. Like a great ocean wave, the rocks and debris swallowed them whole, sending up a great plume of dust and snow that covered the side of the mountain.

  “No!”

  Triel started down the slope, but White Neck caught her leg and held her fast despite her pleadings.

  “I can still save her—it’s not too late,” she begged as she pried at the wolf’s jaws.

  “Save who?”

  Triel reeled around to see Jetta, covered in a thick layer of gray dust, emerging from the cloud of debris on top of Gray Paw. Like nothing had happened, Jetta and Gray Paw trotted up beside her. At first the Healer was too shocked to say anything, and then her hand clenched into a fist.

  “Ow!” Jetta yelled as Triel socked her in the thigh.

  “Don’t do that again,” Triel said.

  Jetta half-smiled as she nursed her thigh. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

  Jetta dismounted and immediately went to the injured wolf. “He broke his leg. We can’t go on.”

  “I can’t heal an animal, Jetta,” Triel said, stroking White Neck’s nose. He whimpered as she inspected his leg. “No Prodgy has ever healed a wild animal. Their rhythms are nothing like ours.”

  Jetta hugged herself tightly as the wind whipped through the saddle and stung their exposed skin. “We have to ge
t off the mountain before this storm picks up or we’ll freeze, and they’re our best chance.”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Triel said, though the doubt was apparent in her voice.

  Then Jetta surprised her. “What if I helped?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jetta tilted her head as she formulated her response. “I can hear them, even understand some of their thoughts. Maybe you could reach them through me.”

  Triel wanted to dismiss the idea, but Jetta continued to explain how it could work.

  “My brother was very different than me and Jaeia, so I used to look through his eyes every once and a while. One time there was this laborminder who was too hard for me to crack, so I went through Jahx’s head and then used my talent on him. Made him think there were Widowmakers everywhere so he would abandon his post and we could steal some tools.”

  “Widowmakers?”

  “A poisonous spider native to Fiorah. Liked to hide in the ship’s engines and then lay its eggs in your ears. My sibs and I always put waxing putty in our ears after we saw them explode out of a kid’s head one shift.”

  Triel made a face. “Sounds awful.”

  “Yeah.” Jetta trailed off, and her eyes dropped to her feet. “He didn’t exactly return to his post. Kinda made him go crazy. But the point is,” she said, quickly redirecting the conversation, “is that maybe you could access my mind to heal the wolf.”

  Triel didn’t see another option, though she didn’t think it was much of one. “What if he won’t let us? If he fights back he could kill us both. Or if he’s got an unclean mind.”

  Jetta pursed her lips. “He’s a wolf. He’s not a bloody Sentient. Besides, he saved us a few too many times for me to believe that.”