The Loctorian Chronicles- Awakening

by Andi J Feron

  His eyes widened, and a smile spread across his face. “Damn, how did I get to be the luckiest man alive?”

  I gave a little twirl so he could see all of me, then we locked arms and walked to the ball. We danced the entire night. We went to an after-party that Petra put on for just our team where we danced some more but in a much less formal manner.

  I looked around at our team that had really become our family. I was grateful for each and every one of them. Fayard for the depth of his wisdom and mindful demeanor. Ajax for his ability to make us laugh to relieve any tension. Elliott for not only his cooking but his ability to see the best in everyone. Also his love for Helen, my best friend, and the way he treated her well.

  I was grateful for Helen for her sweet spirit and loyal friendship. I was even grateful for Petra, as she brought excitement and life into our team. She made sure we let loose and didn’t take ourselves too seriously. Talon and I made the best possible friends when we were assigned to this group.

  We put a rain check on going to the rec center because during dinner our com devices notified us we were required to report to the docking bay by five tomorrow morning. I would have thought by now we would have been used to the early morning wake up calls, but most of us weren’t. We all trudged to the docking bay the next morning looking like we would have preferred a few more hours of sleep. We folded, making it to the planet we were assigned to in less than an hour.

  We were providing back up for taking a critical outpost away from the Khalbytians’ control. The battle was taking place on a field covered in green shell-like rocks, and I imagined that they were going to be pretty rough to land on. Randomly planted throughout the field were yellow spiral trees that grew a delicate looking red flower next to thin blue leaves.

  I flew through the battle, projecting to ten to twelve Khalbytians at a time. The images I projected convinced them to eradicate themselves. Talon fired his weapon at one, melting him to ooze while at the same time throwing a knife into the back of another’s head. If I didn’t have to concentrate on my own abilities, I would have watched him fight. He was a deadly machine maneuvering as though programmed to be void of error.

  I saw Khalbytians falling, cut down for no apparent reason and I knew it was Fayard acting as a phantom, flaring across the battlefield undetected. Petra would stand in the middle of a group of Khalbytians and tell them all to fire on themselves. They would obey her demands without hesitation. Ajax was taking Khalbytians into their minds to destroy them from the inside out.

  Elliott and Helen were hand-to-hand combat like Talon. Elliott was at an advantage because he could tell exactly where a Khalbytians’ next move would be using his heightened senses. Despite his skill, I saw Elliott get struck in the arm and leg, but Helen healed both wounds. Fayard helped give Helen cover to get back to the ship to rest.

  Ajax concentrated on a Khalbytian, but he missed the one coming toward him that sliced its claws deep into his head. Ajax crumpled to the ground, dead. Talon saw it too, and he launched his knives into the Khalbytian’s back.

  The protocol was to secure his body to return to his family. Talon grabbed Ajax and carried him over his shoulder to the ship. There would be time for grieving his loss once we knocked through all of the Khalbytians. We finished off the last of our enemies and limped back, battered and bruised, to the ship.

  I heard Ajax’s voice, sounding distraught. “Helen, why? Why did you do that?”

  Hearing him didn’t make sense. Ajax was dead, and Helen had never been able to bring back the dead. As we walked in, Ajax looked completely healed, and Helen lay still on a cot. She must have been resting. I moved closer to her, and her eyes were open and still. There was blood sliding from her nose.

  “Helen!” I screamed.

  My reaction caught Elliott’s attention, and he was immediately at her side.

  “Helen, babe, can you hear me?” Elliott shook her a little, willing her to stir.

  Talon grabbed the bio scanner and shook his head. Fayard began CPR, but it became clear there was nothing any of us could do. Elliott pleaded with Fayard not to give up. When Elliott finally accepted she couldn’t be saved, he held her, sobbing.

  Ajax sat slumped in the corner crying. “I woke up, and Helen was standing over me, looking tired. She smiled and said she finally did it, that she brought someone back from the dead. Then she collapsed and was gone. I don’t know why she had to do it. She should have left me dead.”

  Even the aloof Petra was crying, and I saw a tear fall down Talon’s face. I sat there, staring at Elliott holding Helen. I felt emotionless at the sight of my best friend dead. Talon navigated us back to base, and no one spoke a single word. Elliott held Helen until the medics insisted he let them take her.

  “They aren’t going to give her back,” he wept.

  Talon pulled Elliott into a hug as they took Helen away. Jasper confirmed there was nothing that could be done, she was gone. He said he knew ability burn out could be fatal in healers, but this was the first case he saw for himself. Talon and I went back to our quarters, and I still felt numb.

  “You want dinner?” Talon asked quietly.

  I shook my head and went to bed. Talon came back a little later and didn’t say anything. He held me tight in his arms and we both slept. I helped Elliott plan Helen’s funeral. He would tell me the details that he wanted, and I would carry them out.

  Over two hundred people showed up to her funeral. Her kind spirit made her valuable to many on base. Admiral Parks asked Talon and me to go back to Earth and tell her parents. We both agreed. We got on a shuttle and traveled to San Diego where Helen grew up. Her parents had moved there from China before Helen was born. I was dreading telling them their daughter was dead. Talon and I checked into our hotel and the time arrived that we could no longer avoid the task at hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Talon - February 23, 2011

  I watched Seraphine dress into her uniform. Her face had remained stoic ever since Helen’s death. I wasn’t sure what to think. Helen was her best friend, but Seraphine showed no emotion, not even at Helen’s funeral. In the past, we lost several friends to war, as battles are harsh and not everyone makes it home.

  She cried for every single one of them, even if it was only for a few minutes. She cried off and on for days after Jerap died, but not a tear for Helen. At the same time, she wasn’t herself either. She was lost in thought most of the time and didn’t want to have conversations.

  We pulled up to Helen’s parents’ house in our full dress uniforms. We got out of the car and rang the doorbell. As soon as Mrs. Lui opened the door, she collapsed to the ground.

  Her husband rushed to the door, helping his wife up and holding her. “Please, don’t say it.”

  We said the lines we were told to say and offered condolences. Then we got back into our car and drove to our hotel room. I took a shower and was putting my pants on when I heard Seraphine yelling.

  I went out to find her struggling to open a jelly jar. I was about to offer her my muscles when she let out a scream and threw it against the door, shattering it. She collapsed to the ground and let out another scream. I ran to her and threw my arms around her.

  “I can’t open the damn jar!” she sobbed. “Why won’t it just open?”

  We sat in the middle of the hotel room, me holding her against my chest as she cried. Finally, she let her head fall into my lap, and I stroked her hair. She stared at the shattered jar. I said nothing, letting her cry for as long as she needed. She kept her head in my lap and held onto my arm tightly.

  After a few minutes, she spoke. “I’m so tired, Talon. I’m so incredibly exhausted. I’m so tired of burying friends in this war.”

  I lifted her up and carried her to bed. She laid her head on my chest and cried herself to sleep. We slept in since there was no need to hurry. Our team member’s death earned us two weeks off, two weeks to mourn before battles and missions were an expected duty.

  Seraphine and I
rented a car and drove up the California coastline. We found a beach where no one was around, and walked close to the ocean, clasping each other’s hands. Seraphine was still pretty quiet, and I knew it would take time for her heart to heal. She was currently trapped in the hazy spaces that sorrow brings to the mind. Watching the waves crash by our bare feet was peaceful. We sat down in the sand, Seraphine sitting between my legs as I held her close.

  “Talon?”

  “Yes, babe?”

  “I don’t get it. I don’t understand why Helen finally found her happiness only to have it stripped away. She and Elliott were so happy. Right before the officers’ ball, Helen told me they decided they wanted to have a baby. Three days later and she was gone. How did we go from her planning for a baby to planning her funeral in less than a week?”

  I listened to her talk more about Helen, glad she was opening up to me. After a couple of hours on the beach, we drove to a crab shack. Seraphine ate a little, and I was happy to see her starting to regain her appetite. Later that afternoon we found a little boardwalk, and we rode the Ferris wheel. We ate some cotton candy, and I won Seraphine a teddy bear with a pink bow.

  We ended the week in Seattle and went to the top of the Space Needle and ate lunch at the fish market. We checked into our hotel for one last night on Earth before returning to what we had escaped from for a week. We stayed in the hotel room the rest of the day, soaking in each other’s presence. I sat on the floor at the end of the bed, turning on the TV and flipping through the channels.

  Seraphine leaned her head upside down and kissed me. “Come to bed, I need more of you.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  I tossed the remote to the side and kissed my wife, savoring every inch of her satin skin. We relished the perfect night, ordering room service and laughing in bed. The next day we left the beaches and hotels behind to board our shuttle back to Saturn base.

  When we arrived, we found out our team was down by two more members. Ajax completed paperwork for early contract termination, and I stopped in his quarters to talk to him about everything. I told him goodbye, and he explained his decision to leave.

  He was combating the guilt of Helen’s death. The fact that he could feel the grief of others, especially Elliott’s, made staying unbearable. Empaths were never able to escape the raw affliction of others. He was returning to Earth to try and make peace with the burden that our last battle left him with.

  Elliott put in for a transfer to another division. He wanted the opposite of Ajax. He wanted to throw himself carelessly into war. He said he needed to be away from where he fell in love with Helen to numb the pain and breathe again. I walked Elliott to his shuttle.

  “If you ever get back this way, look me up man,” I gave him a quick hug and a pat on the back.

  “Will do. Take care of that beautiful wife of yours.”

  I nodded. I thought about how Elliott’s story was almost mine. When Seraphine got sick, I thought there would never be another moment to take care of my wife. I grasped at sadness when he mentioned Seraphine. I got my wife back, but he’d never have his. I wished we both could have had that. Admiral Parks asked me to come to her office when I got the chance, so I headed there after watching Elliott’s shuttle take off.

  “How are you and Seraphine holding up?” Parks asked.

  “Some days are better than others. Seraphine and Helen were close so she took it pretty hard.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, let me know if I can help in any way. The reason I called you is that I wanted you to know the council has decided to promote Fayard Mason to admiral. They want to assign him to the base on Tenor Forty-Four. I know that, with his leaving and the loss of your other members, this pretty much dissolves your team.

  “Obviously, you and your wife will stay together on Saturn base. You may have separate missions for a while until we can put together a new team. I’m assigning the final member of your team, Petra Ambrosia, to a different sector immediately.”

  I found Seraphine in her art room, splattering paint on a large canvas. Painting helped alleviate stress for her, and I was happy to see her find some release. I told her the news, and she frowned, keeping her eyes pinned to her work. She turned up Beethoven and began attacking the canvas more aggressively.

  *

  I still made it home occasionally to check on Allie. She turned seventeen A few months back. She had been asking me to take her on a road trip to check out colleges for some time. I was dreading the task because it meant that she was really close to her eighteenth birthday, and I wanted to avoid giving that thought. I couldn’t keep her locked up, and the inevitability of college was looming.

  Seraphine and I were waiting for our next assignments, which made it an opportune time to give into Allie’s request. Seraphine insisted she was fine and to enjoy myself. She decided she was going to teach art to some of the kids on base. When I got to Earth, Allie heard my motorcycle and came flying out of the house.

  “Road trip! Yeah!” She squealed and threw her arms around me.

  “A little excited?” I smiled at her enthusiasm.

  “Definitely! We need to stop at some nerdy science colleges for John. I keep telling him he’s going to squash his potential if he follows me to a liberal arts college. We could see each other on the weekends and video chat, but he won’t listen. I want to show him how awesome they are, so maybe he’ll change his mind. I, of course, don’t want him somewhere else, but I’m thinking of his future and all,” she said without stopping.

  “Yeah, I could see that.” I wasn’t sure I caught everything she was getting at.

  “So we can put science colleges on the list, right?”

  “Science colleges, got it.”

  We packed up my car, and I was going to be the one driving. John and Allie climbed into the back and Allie swiped John’s ball cap off his head. She placed it on her head, and John didn’t even so much as flinch. We headed west and would make the first college of Allie’s choice by tomorrow afternoon. By noon I was starving and found a little mom-and-pop diner that seemed promising.

  “You two want to try this place?”

  “Yeah, it looks like that diner you used to take me to every summer in the mountains,” Allie said.

  We went into the diner and Allie ordered a grilled cheese. This was a habit she carried out whenever we ate somewhere new. She said that no matter how many different places we went, she never found a place that made it even close to the level of good I made it. After lunch, we hit the road again. Two hours in I noticed a blue car following us.

  They were trying to make it look like they were simply traveling in the same direction by hanging a few cars back, but my instincts were on alert. Day one and there was already trouble. I slowed down to see if the green car would pass.

  All of the cars behind me zoomed into the other lane and went around. The green car slowed down and hung behind. They were following me for sure. This would be fun to try and lose them without letting John and Allie know anything was wrong.

  I turned my tracker sense on and concentrated on the car. I didn’t recognize the man inside. His black hair was buzzed close to his head, and sunglasses covered his eyes. I looked back at the kids. Allie was resting her head against John’s shoulder, and John’s arm was around her; they both were sleeping. I zoomed into the other lane and slammed my brakes. The blue car went flying by as I made a quick U-turn across the median and zoomed the other direction.

  “Everything okay Talon?” Allie called from the back.

  “Yeah, I really needed to use the rest area we passed.”

  I pulled into the rest area and went into the bathroom stall to track the green car. The car was turned around and closing in on us. My guess was that another tracker was on our tail. I hurried back to the car.

  Allie laughed. “That was quick. Thought you’d be a while with such an urgent need.”

  I flew out of the rest area and back onto the highway. I didn’t know how high a tier this tra
cker would be, but if he was lower level, there was a chance I could throw him off our scent by broadcasting our location to various places. When I finally felt he lost our trail, I pulled into a hotel for the night. Allie was excited because I told her she could order whatever she and John wanted from room service. I took a shower, and when I came back out, I saw John sitting alone.

  I took a deep breath. “John, where’s Allie?”

  “She said we needed ice.”

  I ran out of the door and concentrated. She was at the ice machine, and she was talking to the other tracker. I ran barefoot through the halls, making it to the ice machine.

  “Allie, room, now!” I yelled as soon as she was in view.

  “I was getting some ice,” she said.

  “Room now! Don’t argue.”

  Not the time to be stubborn, sis.

  She glared at me and went past me, carrying her empty bucket. I motioned for the bucket, and she handed it over. As soon as I was sure she was out of sight, I slammed the man against the wall. I put my forearm against his throat.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” the man yelled.

  “Why are you tracking us?”

  “I’m just getting ice.”

  I gripped his collar and dragged him out the side door to our right where I knew the dumpsters were located. “Don’t feed me bullshit. You’ve been tracking us since the diner. Tell me why or I’m going to throw your ass in this dumpster and weld it shut.”

  He ignored me and I threw him into the dumpster. I started to close the lid.

  “Okay, man, I don’t want any issues. I’m after your sister.”

  “Why? Choose your words carefully.”

  “The price tag on her recruitment would buy me the new house and car I’ve been wanting. They opened up her file in the system two days ago, so everyone can see your sister’s price now.”