“No,” Jetta said. “They didn’t jump. They passed through dimensions.”
Triel sucked in her breath. “Just like Saol of Gangras.”
“Yes,” Jetta whispered. “Just like Rion.”
I know how it all started...
But something inside her bristled at the idea, and she threw away the thought as quickly as it came.
Nothing’s for sure, she told herself. A part of her needed to believe it was all in her head; some unfulfilled wish for a real mother and father to be somewhere out there. And there’s no time for guessing and nonsense.
“Let’s see if this smartserver works,” Jetta said, putting the bracelet inside her suit pocket and trying to get back on her feet. Getting up too quickly, she nearly collapsed. Agracia stuck out her hand and held her steady. “Whoa, Doc. Careful now.”
Bossy sniggered.
Jetta’s temper flared, but she was too exhausted to put much fire into her reaction. Seeing her frustration, the Healer squeezed her arm as she helped her over to the terminal. “You’ve got this.”
“How the hell are we gonna download this information?” Bossy said, kicking the inert unit with her foot. “This thing ain’t gonna have any juice left after a million years.”
“Just eleven hundred some, kid,” Agracia corrected.
“Stop calling me kid!”
Jetta continued her inspection as the two Scabbers bickered. “This should have an emergency backup somewhere,” she said, feeling around underneath the hood of the monitor with her ungloved hand. Finding a few buttons wither her fingertips, she tried them all. Nothing happened.
“Skucheka,” she muttered. But just as she retracted her hand, the screen flickered, and a green question mark appeared in the upper left corner.
Agracia and Bossy stopped fighting and ran over. “Sweet,” Agracia said, digging out the two datawands and jacking them into the ports. “Ummm... now what?”
“Didn’t Victor give you a code to get in here?” Jetta said as she tried to bypass the lock screen.
Agracia shrugged her shoulders. “No. Why?”
Closing her eyes, Jetta dug deep into her bank of stolen memories. There’s got to be something on interfacing and hacking ancient computers...
“It’s going to be intuitive, don’t you think?” she said out loud, mostly to herself. “Just an older programming language.”
She typed in a few override command codes, but nothing came up.
“Oh sycha,” Agracia said, backing into the terminal.
As Jetta turned, her stomach dropped to her knees. Drooping, inhuman faces dipped in and out of the beams of their flashlights. Molten eyes flashed in the shadows, coils of gray viscera dragging through the rubble. Moaning, gurgling. The sounds of the undead creeping towards them.
The Healer gasped. “There must be another way in.”
“Work faster, Doc,” Agracia said, withdrawing her gun from its holster as Bossy unslung a handful of 20-20s.
Returning to the terminal, Jetta sensed more Necros than the four of them could fend off.
(My father. I saw my father. I know it was him!)
The thought slammed relentlessly against her focus as she pushed herself to crack the smartserver.
“Jetta,” Triel whispered, nudging her from behind. “Hurry, please!”
Think. Think. Must think.
(Victor was here. I know he was here.)
(My father!)
(Pregnant mother—)
(—with us?)
(Victor couldn’t have been here. He lies.)
(Cause For Earth?)
(Transphasic modulator. Dimensional travel. Rion.)
Think, Jetta. THINK.
(It wasn’t Victor’s launch site or he would have had the passcode. He must have been working for Josef Stein.)
Suddenly the bracelet inside her suit pocket felt as hot as a burning coal. She withdrew it and held it tightly in her hand, allowing the phantom heat pass to through her. A sweet, elderly voice slipped into her mind: “Redemption. Reparation. Deliverance. There is still hope, my dearest daughter.”
“Jetta!” Triel said, squeezing her shoulder as a Necro hissed, slowing its pace and approaching them on all fours.
Do something, anything—
A wild guess, a prayer uttered between gritted teeth. With Triel’s fingers still digging into her shoulder, she typed in the numerical equivalent of hope.
“Got it!” Jetta exclaimed as the green screen dissolved into lines of alphanumeric code. She didn’t waste a second, dumping the contents of the smartserver into the two datawands.
Bossy flung a 20-20 into the mass of undulating Necros. “Suck on that!”
“No!” Jetta screamed, yanking out the datawands. “No explosions or it will—”
The blast launched the four of them off their feet and slammed them against the far wall. In the midst of havoc, Jetta saw yellow and orange flames billowing outward from the point of contact, carrying the screams of the undead. The bay shuddered and shook violently as the effect cascaded throughout the sublevels.
Rolling over, Jetta checked on Triel first. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she winced, sitting up. “But we can’t go back the way we came.”
Jetta shined her flashlight toward the elevator shaft. Waves of Necros spilled out between the broken doors and trampled through the blazing remains of their kin. No, definitely not that way.
“Oh, my head!” Bossy complained as she brushed herself off and tipsily stood up.
Behind the pint-sized dark horse, Jetta’s eye caught an edge of the red-painted symbol she had seen in her vision. The rest of it hid behind a fallen beam, covered in a thick layer of black grime. Seeing all of their other options exhausted, Jetta took the chance.
“Help me move this beam,” Jetta said, helping Agracia to her feet.
The Necros drew nearer, advancing on deformed limbs, faces caved in and dripping with mucoid fluid. Their sour, rank smell preceded them, making her stomach twist. Through the garbled noises that emanated from their many orifices, she thought she heard whisperings, like frail voices trying to rise above the ferocious din of the undead.
The four of them shoved with all their might, but the beam wouldn’t give way. Finally, exhaustion triumphed.
Panting and holding herself up with one arm against the wall, Agracia flipped off the beam. “Chakking thing won’t even budge.”
“Look!” Bossy said, pointing to the slatted opening above the door. From what Jetta could tell, it appeared to be a vent shaft for keeping the circulation intact in launch sites. And big enough for a full-grown adult to fit inside.
Jetta didn’t hesitate. “On my shoulders!”
For the first time since she met her, Bossy complied without a fight or crass remark. She hoisted the tiny Scabber up with shaky limbs while she unscrewed the ventilation shaft cover.
“Hurry!” Bossy said, crawling back around and reaching down for Agracia’s hand.
The launch site trembled again, this time enough to knock Jetta off her feet. She scrambled up quickly, as Agracia popped off a few rounds at the Necros nearest their group.
“You next,” Jetta said, helping Triel up.
“Jetta!” the Healer tried to protest, but Jetta wouldn’t hear it. She helped boost her up, allowing Agracia to pull her the rest of the way.
Cold, slimy hands groped at her shoulder. Jetta reared around and kicked the nearest Necro in the sternum, her boot crunching against its hollow and pitted chest. Something wet sprayed her suit, but she didn’t have time to investigate.
“Give me your hand!” Agracia shouted.
But when Jetta reached for her, Agracia froze in place.
“Skucheka, no!” Jetta screamed as the Jock’s mind arrested and her body went flaccid. “Not now! Agracia, snap the hell out of it!”
Agracia didn’t move, her arm dangling over the lip of the vent shaft.
Hands reached out for her in the dark. Jetta used the spl
icer she had created to shear off any fingers that managed to grab onto her suit, but their numbers overwhelmed her ability to stave off each attack. Moans and gurgles grew more excited as they smelled her sweet flesh, living and full of warm, rich blood.
“Tarsha,” Jetta screamed through the headset. “Tarsha Leone, I need you! What you’re seeing isn’t real! This is real! You’re on Earth battling the Necros. Come back!”
Jetta could see Agracia’s nightmare uncoil from the depths of her, winding around her mind and suffocating her waking eye.
Li’s voice came whispering up from the blackness of her worst fears: “I will kill you.”
Standing above her, Unipoesa reviewed her failed test scores, belittling her in front of the class. “You have disappointed me, cadet.”
Alone. So alone.
The same dream over and over, poisoning her sleep. Her and Li, in the showers again, but this time there was no escape, no means of delay as she lie naked, immobilized, and unable to scream. Unipoesa watched alongside the other faceless teachers and students as her enemy vivisected her slowly and methodically.
“Oh Gods!” Jetta yelled, tearing herself away from Agracia’s memories.
Something like wet intestines wrapped around her leg, pulling it out from under her. Within the span of a choked breath, the hoard clawed and crawled on top of her. She flailed out, her fists and feet connecting with jaws and faces, but nothing slowed the assault. Their stench, rotting flesh and gangrenous bone, swamped her nose and lungs while their joyous howls assailed her ears.
I’m not going to die, she thought as they tore into her suit. Not like this.
Jetta was prepared to dig into her talent, to sacrifice the last of herself, when a blinding blue light illuminated the entire launch pad. The Necros shrieked and backed away, scurrying behind equipment and machinery to protect themselves from the startling light source.
Anticipating pain, Jetta shielded her eyes, but then gradually brought her arm down when she realized it didn’t hurt. Instead, the light felt inviting, intoxicating.
Just like the halo created by the Dissembler weapon, only...
(...beautiful. Safe.)
Slowly, Jetta stood up. The ethereal light source was coming from the vent shaft. As she drew nearer, she could see the outline of a face.
“Agracia?” Jetta saw the Scabber crumpled up on the floor beneath the shaft. Someone or something had shoved her out.
Jetta looked back toward the source, reaching for it, extending her fingertips into the light until she touched the contour of the face. A kiss of sunlight started at the base of her fingers and spread to her toes until her entire being felt illuminated from the inside out. The most sublime feeling pervaded her soul, kindling her heart with songs she had never sung.
The Great Mother.
“Amaroka...,” Jetta, dazed and unaware of her words, whispered. “Take me.”
Chapter VIII
In the privacy of her quarters, Jaeia watched an older newsreel questioning the reports released by Victor’s campaign team. The same buzz played on all the news channels. The highly controversial Kyron twins. Powerful telepaths. Unstable. Volatile. Dangerous. More dangerous than Dissemblers.
Jaeia didn’t think it would be long before Victor played his next hand. Even as Trigos buckled under the pressure of his political and military agenda, a few outlying colonies and stray bands of loyalists remained under the Alliance banner. But he didn’t just want the Starways to pledge to his Galactic Republic.
He wants to seize the minds of the citizens, she realized, finally appreciating the breadth of Victor’s goals. As if the fear of the Motti’s Dissembler device isn’t enough, he’s now aggressively pushing the impotency of the Alliance and slandering me and my sister.
She ran her fingers along the interface module, anchoring herself with the smooth feel of the plastic keys.
I’m so glad Jetta isn’t here to see this, Jaeia thought, muting the newscaster’s voice. At first the videos bothered her, but as time passed, she grew numb to the slanted portrayal of her and her sister. Most of the videos were taken right after they had killed their brother, exposing their mental and physical breakdowns.
What else could anyone expect of us? Besides, she had forgiven herself long ago for what happened.
But as the thought passed through her, she made another connection: Jetta’s been struggling with her self-image...
Maybe the broadcasts weren’t geared toward dismantling the Alliance’s influence through fear, but at unhinging Jetta herself. Victor’s tricked her before; my sister is susceptible to his manipulations.
Shaken by the thought, Jaeia walked over to the food dispenser. As she ordered herself a jasmine tea, she heard the volume to her terminal click back on.
“Jaeia Kyron. It’s been far too long since we’ve last spoken.”
Her hand stopped halfway to the steaming cup of tea. That voice. Leaving her tea in the dispenser, she slowly turned around to face him. “Victor.”
He smiled, deeply carved lines bracketing his mouth. “I hear you’ve been promoted to captain now. Congratulations.”
“How did you get on this secured line, Victor?” she said, typing in commands to trace the call. She knew better. Victor was only traceable when he deemed it necessary.
“You still don’t believe that I designed the Alliance defense network system, do you?”
Jaeia sent a manual text to Wren on her uniform sleeve, alerting him to the breach. The defense network patch that had been mysteriously sent to her had saved a few of the starbases and ships from Victor’s attacks, but not many. How did Victor make an unauthorized connection?
“This is a secured station. Tell me how you got on this line.”
Victor lifted a martini glass to her. “Not the time, my young friend. This is a moment of celebration!”
He’s going to provoke me, she thought. Even as she steeled herself, she couldn’t have prepared for what appeared on the projectors.
“Pao!” Jaeia whispered. Walking back over to her desk, she touched the edge of the hologram, bending the blue image. Galm and Lohien smiled back at her, waving and calling out, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying.
This isn’t live, she realized. No, it was the same short, recorded segment he had shown her once before, continuously replaying in the background as Victor resumed his communication.
“After Fiorah joined the Galactic Republic, I’ve made it my mission to clean up the planet.”
Jaeia couldn’t find the words or take her eyes off the images of her aunt and uncle. She leaned in closer, her face only centimeters from the dancing array of projected light.
“One of my relief teams reported finding your adoptive parents in an abandoned apartment building. I assume it was your old residence; nearly burned down in some sort of electrical fire. Apparently your uncle refused to leave. Claimed you were going to come back for him. Well, fortunately, I found him.”
Jaeia knew better. She pulled herself away. “From your treatment of me and my sister in the media, I highly doubt you’d do anything so kind as to help our parents.”
“On the contrary—I have immense desire to help you. My contention is with the Alliance, not with you. It was wrong for Minister Razar to keep you in service after what happened to your brother.”
“It was our choice.”
Victor chuckled. “I think family is what will give you and your sister stability. The Alliance has not been forthright with you about your origins or your adoptive family.”
“Meaning?”
After flashing her another smile, Victor took an exaggerated sip of his drink. “Meaning that your adoptive parents have been on Fiorah all along. The Alliance kept you from finding them because the moment Jetta found them, she would have insisted that the two of you discharge from the service.”
Not entirely true, but close, Jaeia thought. Jahx was Jetta’s biggest grounding force now.
“What do you want?” Jaeia
asked, surreptitiously checking her sleeve. A message from Wren flashed in red: “We have a lock on the signal.”
“Come to Jue Hexron. Reunite with your family. See that I only want what’s best for you and your sister. I want to give you a second chance.”
The communications feed bleeped out, but the image of her aunt and uncle froze on the hologram.
Time passed without her noticing as she stood there, too stunned to move. Reunite with family—is that possible?
When the door chimed, and a visitor stepped in, she barely noticed.
“May I come in, Sir?”
Jaeia spun around. Aesis stood nervously in the doorway, accompanied by two guards with their weapons thrust into his back. Assuming the same body she had first seen him in, he looked upon her with warm, violet eyes, his blonde hair standing out against his light skin. It must be his choice host.
She found herself happy to see him.
“Yes, please,” she said, dismissing the guards. Regrouping herself, she straightened up and fiddled with the ends of her uniform sleeves. “What can I help you with?”
Aesis’s eyes drifted toward the image of her aunt and uncle, locking onto their faces.
“What is it?” she said, alerted to his heightened curiosity.
“I—I just came here to thank you for setting us free.”
“Of course,” Jaeia said. She got up and went back for her tea. It had cooled considerably, but she still took a sip.
“Something else is on your mind, isn’t it?” As she waited for him to continue, she watched his eyes repeatedly return to the image. “Those are my adoptive parents. I haven’t seen them in a long time.”
Aesis took a few steps toward the projector and bent forward into the light field. His violet eyes grew wide and his chest bulged, as if the worm inside him had become unsettled. “You know those are Spinners, don’t you?”
Jaeia set the cup of tea down too hard on the desk, splashing the synthetic mahogany finish. “No, I was not aware. How do you know?”
“I know my own kind, Captain.”
Sucking on her lower lip, Jaeia tried to decide whether or not to accept his statement. “Thank you, Aesis; I appreciate your help.”
Triorion Omnibus Page 126