Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  Since Triel barely paid attention to her lessons years ago, she didn’t think she could have remembered the intricate phrases and vocalizations that accompanied the lifebond ritual. But when Jetta’s lips found her breast and her hands found the warmth between her legs, she lost herself to the ancient tongues of her people.

  “Ai-lĕ, ime, Ai-lĕ!”

  Jetta rolled her onto her side and bit her neck, holding her firmly with one arm as the other worked between her legs. Overcome, she spoke the incantations breathlessly, barely able to keep herself from shouting out.

  “Je’s tu saei!”

  Emitting a low growl, Jetta scooted down, positioning the Healer on her back.

  “Ai-lĕ, ime, Ai-lĕ! Je’s tu saei! ” she cried. She grabbed Jetta’s head and pulled her to her lips. “Take me, now, for all eternity!”

  Closing her eyes, Triel pulled them both into the liminal state, a threshold of the senses where the harmonies of being exploded in polychromatic, interconnected wheels. She soared heavenward, to a realm she could not have imagined from her lessons, awakened to the songs of their souls. Her heart filled with joy and she let go, falling into Jetta, beyond the borders of their parsible beings, into a place without time, illuminated by a sunless sky.

  Something skittered on the edge of her awareness. A bead of blood slid down an invisible wall, shattering against the bright, sunless sky. Triel shuddered and buckled, withdrawing to protect herself as dark and menacing entity took interest in her presence.

  “Aelana... Amaroka,” it called to her. “We see you...”

  She screamed as a creature, slick and black as if covered with oil, uncoiled from the fading light.

  The crash-landing on Algar— she remembered. The thing embedded beneath Jetta’s skin—

  It reached out to her, just as before, with twisted fingers like the roots of a plant. Looking down on her with the same dead, hollow eyes, it seethed with immeasurable hungers that no mortal mind could comprehend.

  (No!) she screamed as it grazed the edge of her being, sending ripples of terror and despair through her mind. She retreated as fast as she could as the beast slunk towards her.

  (I was wrong—so wrong.)

  “Triel!”

  Jetta hovered over her, tears in her eyes, hands cupping the Healer’s face.

  Triel rolled over and retched, losing the meager contents of her stomach onto the speckled carpeting.

  This can’t be...

  (I was wrong.)

  Bracing her temples, she tried to sort through the confusion that pervaded her senses. Whatever Jetta harbors is too strong for me, she realized. Too strong for both of us.

  (It’s hopeless.)

  “What happened?” Jetta said, offering her a glass of water from the food dispenser. Still naked, she stood their shivering, oblivious to the cold as she focused on the Healer. “I felt you inside me. It was exquisite... but then the connection severed so abruptly.”

  Triel couldn’t yet conjure up the ability to speak. Everything seemed so senseless, so clouded by pain.

  “That wasn’t the mating ritual, was it? Amargo’s knowledge was of something very different—not that I minded,” Jetta said, blushing and pulling her jacket over her shoulders.

  “It wasn’t,” Triel said, her voice weak, full of gravel. “I was trying something different. The lifebond of our people. I was giving myself to you. I thought, perhaps, then I could avoid...”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Oh. Well, why didn’t it work?”

  “Something... made contact with me. It was terrifying...” From the look on Jetta’s face, Triel gathered she sensed her trepidation.

  Jamming her feet into her pant legs, Jetta’s anger and shame radiated from her like an overheated furnace.

  “Jetta, wait, I—”

  “No,” Jetta said through clenched teeth. “I am a monster. There is no hope for me. You and I both know this. Whatever’s inside me will destroy us both.”

  Triel reflexively put her hands over her heart, trying to suppress the ache in her chest as Jetta closed herself off. And then she realized what that meant.

  “Jetta, I can feel you—wait!”

  Triel ran after her, tackling her from behind. Jetta, with her pants still around her legs, slammed onto the floor.

  The Healer didn’t hesitate, diving into her through the contact of their exposed skin. It didn’t take her long to find the dark creature waiting for her at the forefront of Jetta’s being.

  “Amaroka...”

  Its voice brought chills to her skin, and as she tried to shield herself with the love she felt for Jetta, she found herself submitting to its venomous touch. It drew its strength from her suffering, boring into her soul with brutish rage.

  (Jetta, help me!)

  But it had taken hold of Jetta, consuming her with every bite it took out of Triel.

  It’s killing me—

  —us—

  As the thing ripped into her memories, it sliced her mind open like a piece of butchered meat, unmaking her from the inside out. She understood Jetta’s pain and all the horror she had been capable of as the thing pushed her farther and farther away from that which made her whole.

  Arpethea, she cried out through the psionic bridges of the interdimensions. Help me, please!

  A voice called back from the netherworlds, building in intensity and volume until it shook the beast’s hold. (KILL THE APPARAX.)

  The prophecy. Ne’topat’h. Jetta’s arms, wide open. Her own will, always defiant, always leading her away, only to lead her back into the life she had disavowed.

  Triel saw no other choice. She stuck her fingers into the creature’s dead eyes, feeling them slide through the cold jelly. There she forged the forbidden connection, the one that took root in the heart of a Dissembler. Clinging to the fading memory of Jetta, of her own life, she tipped back her head and invoked death.

  JAEIA LURCHED OVER the railing, then catapulted backward onto the lift as if someone had kicked her in the gut. As she struggled to breathe, she saw her brother faint, DeAnders barely catching him by the armpits.

  “Captain, are you okay?” one of the medics asked as another checked her vital signs.

  Jaeia reached out, trying to grasp at the connection that was no longer there.

  Jetta was dead.

  Chapter XIII

  Jetta flung away from herself and into a glowing rim enclosing a fluid world. Energy and light collided, shattering into spectrums of color she could never have imagined, as a battle unfolded within the liquid bindings of the transitional plane.

  As she floated away from the dazzling display, she cared less and less about her separation from her old, transient form. Free of her worries, free of the rigidity and contortions of her corporeal state, she melded with the joys and dreams that awaited her on the other side of the shell of light.

  But even in this place she hadn’t rid herself of the shadow eclipsing her heart. She had all but forgotten its presence when it reached out to her in feral desperation.

  She saw its face for the first time.

  JETTA WAS DEAD FOR a total of three minutes and forty-three seconds when the security forces finally broke down the Healer’s door and the medical team rushed inside.

  Closing her eyes, Triel whispered the last rites of the Ne’topat’h as Jaeia ran to her sister and the medical teams swarmed the Commander. Triel coughed and sniffled uncontrollably, affronted by the overpowering stress pheromones emitted by Jetta’s twin.

  “She’ll be okay,” Triel said, leaning back against the wall, physically and mentally exhausted, tears brimming her lids. “She’s coming back around now.”

  Jetta opened her eyes just as one of the medics got ready to dispense a heavy dose of neurotransmitters into her system. Still dazed, her limbs remained flaccid, her speech unintelligible.

  “What did you do?” Jaeia demanded, muscling her way through the medics to hold her sister in her arms.

  The s
ecurity forces reacted to her voice, lifting their guns and preparing to take aim.

  Triel couldn’t find the strength to answer in full. Instead, she offered her hand for Jaeia to see, but Jetta’s gray-eyed twin refused.

  “Tell me,” she said, forcing the medics to work around her as she clung to her sister.

  “There was a... a dark presence inside her. I... dissolved it as best I could.”

  Jaeia stopped rocking her sister and took a long, hard look at both of them. Seeing Jetta and Triel only half-clothed made her forehead crinkle, but as Jetta stirred, her brow relaxed.

  She’s accessing her sister’s memories and piecing together what happened, Triel realized.

  She didn’t tell Jaeia of her uncertainty. In her attempts to destroy the malignant entity inside Jetta, she had utilized her caustic Dissembling powers, but it had only strengthened the demon’s hold. Finally, she had been forced to do the unthinkable.

  The Healer closed her eyes and saw herself doing it all over again. Strangling Jetta’s lifecords, the terrible shriek of the beast as it faded away into the frigid pull of death. She waited what seemed like an eternity before going back in, counting her own heartbeats in the empty abyss of Jetta’s lifeless body.

  (Is it dead?)

  Triel opened her eyes again. No one had ever performed the Ne’topat’h with an empty vessel. She couldn’t imagine what kind of sacrilege she had committed, or even if it had worked. Other than returning to her body disoriented and thoroughly stripped of energy, she felt no different than before.

  “Vitals are stabilizing,” one of the medics announced. “Let’s give her 4mg of hydraporpoform...”

  The door opened to her quarters and DeAnders, Jahx, and the rest of the medical team came through. Despite Jahx’s unchanged demeanor, Triel could tell by the scent of his elevated blood chemistries that his body had also suffered the stress of his sister’s death.

  “Is everyone okay?” Dr. DeAnders said. “I will call Dr. Kaoto.”

  “No, everything is fine” Jetta managed to say, sitting up and holding her temples. As she shooed away the medics, she looked down and saw her half-naked body, and turned bright red. “Can you hand me my top please?”

  Jaeia scooted next to Triel while Jetta fought off the rest of the medical team’s inquiries. “Are you okay? I’m sorry I spoke to you like that.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can’t imagine what you felt when Jetta... died. I’m so sorry.”

  Rubbing her forehead, Jaeia gave a hesitant smile. “As long you helped her.”

  Triel accepted a hand up and Jaeia’s arm around her waist as she assisted her to the couch. When a medic held out her arm to administer her a booster, she didn’t stop him. The Healer breathed in sharply as the meds hit her like a star-class freighter traveling at light speed.

  “Thanks, I really needed that.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Jaeia asked again.

  Despite how she felt, she gave an automated response. “Yes.”

  “Great,” Jetta said, slowly making her way to the couch. “Jae—you’d better follow Jahx again. And take the teams with you, too,” she said, jabbing her thumb at an overly excited medic who wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Jaeia looked at them warily, but Jetta locked eyes with her sister, swaying back and forth as they engaged in a silent exchange. After a long pause and a few muttered words, Jaeia ordered the medical and security teams to follow her as she trailed their brother out of the room.

  Jetta sat on the same couch as the Healer but kept her distance. “That was... a terrible experience. I’m not exactly sure what I felt, or saw.”

  “I’m sorry,” Triel said, covering her face with her hands. She didn’t try to stop herself from crying. “I thought I was helping you. I thought I was...”

  Jetta laid her hand on her knee. “Whatever that was inside me, whatever you saw... I can’t feel it like before. Maybe you got rid of it. Maybe I’m no longer that monster.”

  Triel hid her trembling hands and forced a smile.

  Edging closer, Jetta moved her hand to her thigh. “Look, I’m not sure what happened, but I do know this,” she said, lifting up her shirt. The wound that had refused to heal was only a pink line across her stomach. “You did something good.”

  When Triel touched Jetta’s abdomen, something pulled at the corners of her mind. She couldn’t put the feeling into words, nor could she justify the way she felt.

  A genuine smile brightened her face as she hugged Jetta with all of her might.

  “I’m so sorry, Jetta,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”

  “Love you, too. Forever and always,” Jetta said, not letting her go.

  JAEIA FOLLOWED HER brother to the specialized area in the Division Lockdown Lab where the medical and research teams had collaborated to hold the alleged Kurt Stein. Unsure of how to handle such a high profile and unstable individual, the teams decided on using several different types of force fields and biorestrictive devices, containing the doctor to the exam table in the middle of a security hold. All of this she expected—except for the modified shock collar on Stein’s neck as he lie sleeping.

  Those were supposed to be destroyed, Jaeia thought, upset at the sight of the outlawed device. Still, she understood the rationale after experiencing her sister’s memories of the incredibly powerful telepath. I guess extreme caution is warranted in this instance, even if it is ethically wrong.

  Jahx stood silently by Kurt’s bedside, rocking slightly back and forth, his eyes closed and his psionic presence distant.

  “Why are we here?” Jaeia asked him.

  “Captain, I strongly advise against any contact,” Dr. DeAnders said, standing back with the rest of the teams near the security station. “The computer systems are still having trouble decoding his DNA, and we can’t predict if—or when—he’s going to wake up. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”

  If you only knew how strong his psionic signature was, Jaeia thought, grimacing as she fortified her mind against the slumbering doctor’s telepathic wavelengths.

  “We won’t be long,” Jaeia said. Turning back to Jahx, she tried to again. “Why are we here? Please, Jahx—tell me something.”

  Jahx said nothing.

  Irritated, she moved to the head of the bed and tried to sort out what she could.

  He’s so hard to read, she thought, unable to discern anything useful. Instead of fluid thought patterns, she sensed a static hum. Maybe whatever our mother did to lock down his mind is effecting my ability to read him.

  Even her brother’s mind made more sense to her.

  Jahx, Jaeia called out silently. What do you want me to see? What am I supposed to do?

  Jahx didn’t move, nor could she sense any thoughts from him.

  “Skucheka,” she muttered. Although she rarely swore, but she found herself letting loose with as many as she could think of. “Ratchakker assino mugarruthepeta—”

  Frustrated and out of ideas, she walked to the nearest terminal and pulled up any available files on Kurt Stein. She flipped through the images and articles, noting their remarkable likeness to the man lying on the exam table but absorbing nothing that she didn’t already know.

  I need something, anything.

  Her eye lingered on a picture of Kurt and Josef Stein standing together in front of a sign for an awards ceremony in New Berlin. Something about the way Josef had proudly flung his arm around his son, about the way Kurt beamed as he held up a patent for his legendary genetic coding nanites caught her attention. Even on the flat projection, centuries after the occasion, she felt the strength of the connection between father and son.

  Josef loved his son, and Kurt loved his father.

  Before she had a chance to think about it, her fingers started up on their own, typing in a new command.

  She played the last video recording that Josef Stein ever made.

  “Dearest Kurt... I am ashamed of what I have become...”

&nb
sp; The same compulsion that drove her fingers dug into her brain and tugged at her gut. She found herself going from terminal to terminal, pulling up the log on every playable screen.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” she heard DeAnders say. She ignored him and kept the other medical staff from crossing into the security hold.

  “Stay back!” she warned above the noise from the terminals.

  “...I will find you, Kurt. And I will make things right again.”

  Bracing her head, she tried to control herself, and the strange new urges. What is happening—?

  Something shifted in the air; a ripple went out along the psionic planes. When she looked up, she saw Jahx staring intently at the man on the table, his blue eyes glowing as the video repeated itself.

  “Oh Gods...” she whispered.

  Kurt Stein opened his eyes.

  Backing up against the wall, Jaeia felt as if someone unleashed a barrage of thunder in her head. She fell to her knees, trying to block out the psionic assault as the man rose from the medical bed.

  “Get back, get back!” DeAnders shouted, ordering the teams to take cover behind the safety partition. Out of the corner of her eye, Jaeia saw him firing the shock collar, but it did no good. Even after four or five charges, Kurt Stein appeared unfazed, ripping it from his neck and casting it aside.

  Jaeia screamed and bucked as the thunder of his psionic assault solidified into a deafening white noise that boiled through her gray matter and bubbled from her skin. The man turned toward her, eyes blazing with unconscionable fury.

  (He’s not just going to kill me—

  —he’s going to tear my soul apart—)

  Unperturbed, Jahx stepped forward, his right hand held out before him. The pain shooting through her body subsided to a dull ache, and for the second time that day she heard her brother speak.

  “Wasu, Ammon.”