“No,” I said as I shook my head. “Just that we be careful.”
“Fair enough,” she answered. “Vessa gave me the ability to open these doors. Let’s turn on our active abilities, then get to work.”
I did as she said and activated my qi shield. Then, I activated the qi abilities Elder Mara had taught me from stabilizing my drops. A thin layer of stone coated my entire body, courtesy of a technique made possible from my drop of earth qi. My muscles grew warm as a layer of fiery power coursed through them, granted from my new fire qi. And finally, a healing current circulated through my entire body, reinforcing the basic rejuvenation technique Vessa had taught me earlier by drawing on power granted by my water qi.
I held off on using my new mana spells. But a quick glance at Nova told me she was ready as well. She drew her war baton, and I drew the short blade I had gained from slaying the wailing practitioner.
“Ready,” she announced, her light-blue eyes glowing visibly, giving off a light of their own to help her see in the dark confines of the ship.
“Ready,” I said as well.
“I’m opening the door now. Get ready.”
The blonde woman blinked again, and the large metal door suddenly hummed. For a moment I panicked, but this time no whispering sounded out. The massive door slowly slid open from the middle, and we were greeted with the sight of the battle next room.
I immediately had to suppress a moan of disgust.
I was already very, very tired of eaterlings, and I resented Vessa for being so right about their high numbers.
There were two packs of the revolting creatures, that hissed at each other from across the room. Most of them were of the rat-lizard variety, their skin resembling a diseased-looking combination of fur and scales, but the two in the very middle of the room had cockroach carapaces on their backs and chests and were dueling, clawing, snapping, and slashing at each other with sharpened pieces of shrapnel. Rival gangs fighting over territory, I thought to myself, as the eaterlings closest to us turned around in surprise.
Nova’s own face grimaced in disgust as she lifted her baton and fired a thin beam of light through a half-dozen eaterlings. They fell to the floor screaming, dying, and venting Source energy.
“Gonna save the rest of my power for now,” she said, and then charged into the largest cluster of eaterlings, smashing skulls with every swing of her club.
Since it was painfully obvious that she could clear this entire room herself without any trouble at all, I decided to hang back and guard the doorway, to prevent anything slipping past us and going after Vessa. Even though she could probably handle these things herself by now too, I thought painfully to myself. But then an eaterling gave me an opportunity to feel useful by charging toward me, brandishing its own makeshift sword.
I parried the weapon with my own half-blade, my Source-infused weapon denting my enemy’s improvised sword. Then I flicked my wrist to knock its weapon away and slashed back in a quick counter-swing. The rat-lizard shrieked in pain as its hand was severed, then it fell gurgling to the floor when my next stab took its throat.
“Right!” Nova called out as she brained one of the two dueling eaterlings. “You can get more out of fighting these than me!” She reached over and grabbed the other roach-thing by the throat. “Gonna send the rest your way! Enjoy!” With that, she hurled the monster clear across the room and in my direction.
I swore at her, as I was already fighting a second eaterling. I kicked the monster hard enough to lift it off the floor, then severed its head with another swing. As the cockroach eaterling flew toward me, I invested a small amount of earth qi into remaining rooted to the floor and a small amount of bone essence to withstand the impact of a body being flung at me, and then stuck out my short blade as a creature slightly bigger than myself slammed into the weapon.
The monster’s lizard head began screeching as my weapon tore deeply into it. I punched its head with my stone-and-qi hardened fist, crumpling it, then I quickly fired a mana bolt into its brain and threw it off my weapon. When I turned my attention back to the center of the room, I found that Nova had driven all of the surviving eaterlings in my direction, the monsters determined to escape the powerful woman by fleeing into the next room.
For a moment I felt sorry for them. Then I remembered how they were already bracing to attack us the moment they noticed us enter the room, and that none of them had ever given me any reason to believe their intentions were ever even remotely benign.
So I quickly sheathed my blade, knelt down, and waved my hands in a pattern that would allow me to draw upon the spell given to me by my second mana wisp.
The precise dimensions of the volume of the room—specifically the height, depth, and width of the area the monsters were charging into—poured into my brain. I activated my fire bolt spell, and the scorching ray expanded as it interacted with the spell I had just cast, filling the entire area with a thin shred of fire mana. The monsters’ natural Source protection blocked most of the flame from giving their skin anything more than minor burns, but the fire still entered their bodies through their mouths, ears, eyes, and other large orifices. The result was that the eaterlings’ entire bodies were burned inside and out, removing their ability to see, hear, smell, and breathe. They fell to the ground making whatever dying noises their ruined throats allowed them to, sending out a large cloud of Source energy that flowed toward me.
As it passed over me, my mind worked out the needed insights for stabilizing my third wisp, relying partially on my recent application of the second wisp.
“Wow,” I heard Nova exclaim in amazement. “I figured you could handle these,” she said as she walked toward me, “but I didn’t think it would be that easy for you. So you made fire as one of your wisps?”
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “My second wisp is math. I used it to alter and expand the dimensions of a basic spell that Vessa taught me.”
“Math?” the blonde woman shouted in exasperation. “Your second wisp is math? Not fire, lightning, or even healing, but math? Why in the heavens of every illegal religion would you think that would be a good idea?”
“Language, Nova,” I admonished, just because the oath reminded me of everything my world’s government had done. “And I thought I just demonstrated why it was a good idea, but I picked math because it’s a component of many other sciences. If I can advance my understanding of it, I can use it to help with my other substages, and do more tricks like this last one.” I gestured at the smoking bodies littering the room.
“You could have done that exact same trick if you had made fire your next wisp!” Nova shouted. “And it probably would have been even easier to do!”
“No,” I rebutted, “because by making fire one of my qi substages, any flame I create is already automatically enhanced. But math allows me to alter the dimensions for any spell. So I can do that same trick with earth, water, ice—anything I can think of. And, come to think of it, fire may not have even been the best choice for me to have used in the first place,” I mused, as I tried to figure out whether pouring a bunch of earth or water into the monsters’ eyes and throats would have been more effective. Probably not, I decided. Not this time, at least.
“But you hate math!” Nova said, still shouting. “You hated every time I asked you to help me with my math homework!”
“I did,” I admitted with a shrug. “But it seems a lot more fun now.”
“I can’t believe this,” Nova said as she shook her head. “You get an opportunity to tap into the magical wonders of the universe, one that lets you pick and choose exactly what kind of miracles you get to perform, and your first real choice is to learn how to turn triangles into squares. So what did you pick for your third wisp, Jas? Colors? Spelling and grammar, maybe?”
“Hadn’t realized you could notice when I stabilized my third wisp, but no,” I answered. “I went with physics. Since math is necessary to understand it.”
The Beacon tilted her head at me
.
“Physics,” she repeated, as if saying a word I just said would somehow negate it. “Actual physics.”
“Correct,” I said with a nod. “It seemed too useful not to do.”
“Okay,” Nova sighed as she covered her face with her hands. “You’ve taken your third opportunity to master the hidden power of the universe, and used it to go up a grade level in basic education. This makes no sense to me, and I was smart enough to test out of all these studies back home, and go straight into working for the government.”
“I was really proud of you for that, by the way,” I said, “but no, I’m expecting math and physics to advance my power considerably. To either help me keep up with you, or at least augment your own capabilities, Nova.”
“Right,” Nova replied, still covering her face. “In the same way that you’ve decided your little planet counts as a combat-style Soulscape. You know what,” she decided, removing her hands. “It’s fine. It really is. Actually that was me being passive-aggressive, because it’s not fine, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and I need to respect your decisions for your own Advancement. And I know you’re probably going to actually make this choice work, which is just going to make me even more mad later if I don’t find a way to let it go right now. So there,” she finished, letting out her breath.
“I appreciate it,” I said, unsure of what else to say to her at the moment.
“Jackass,” she spat. “I mean, you’re welcome. Now let’s check out this room.”
I looked around, realizing that I actually hadn’t paid more than subconscious attention to the room I had just slaughtered a large number of life forms inside. It was another large room, although it was completely bare, so I had no idea what it was for. But as I looked closely, I saw outlines on the floor that resembled the lowered terminals inside Vessa’s sanctuary.
“Backup storage,” Nova said after closing her eyes. “This was supposed to be another area for the crew to manage. Ideally, they would have moved Vessa’s flesh-body to the sanctuary with a small contingent, and kept everyone else here. That way, each group would have their own set of resources, and Vessa would have an additional buffer between her and any boarders.”
“That feels redundant, given that there are probably other storage rooms,” I voiced. “And I can’t imagine Vessa being comfortable with that much protection. She seems to feel smothered as it is, just with me and you here.”
“She wasn’t comfortable with it,” Nova said, still blinking. “But her ship-parents had her built this way. She was one of the last Soulships to be born—or made, I don’t exactly know which—and they were all very protective of her.” Nova looked uncomfortable, as she continued to recall information she did not think she should know. “They spared no expense with her. They built multiple redundancies into her. Multiple storage rooms. Multiple life support systems. Multiple backup drives, in case the main one failed for any reason. Even a backup engine, in case the first was destroyed. She’s actually...” Nova shook her head. “She’s actually using it right now. Every system she has online is a backup system, because the first was either de-powered or destroyed when the room was lost. And she hates that her ship-parents were right. That she needed this much protection. She...” Nova’s voice caught, and her blue eyes shone wet in the dimly lit room. “She’s me, Jas. And I’m her. And I haven’t wanted to admit it. I don’t think I can even bring myself to keep admitting it. I’ll probably contradict myself later, even though you know how much I hate doing that with anything. But I have to admit it right now. She’s me, and I’m her, and even though I was comfortable with that the first time I met her, I’m not anymore. I don’t know what to do about it, Jasper.”
I walked closer to my friend, holding out my arms. We had hugged before. It was not an issue for me, even when I admitted I found her attractive. For a moment, it wasn’t an issue for her either. She stepped into my embrace and pulled my arms about her. It was a much easier experience for me this time, because I was finally taller than her now. But a moment later, she gently pushed me away.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “And now I’ve ruined everything, and I’m afraid to talk about it, even though we need to. I shouldn’t have said what I said before, Jasper. Not now that I know I’m this... person, with multiple bodies. It would be one thing if I was completely sure she felt the same, but if she felt the same way I did about everything, we wouldn’t argue all the time. So I can’t commit my heart to you, Jasper. I’m sorry. Maybe if I hadn’t waited until the last minute to say it...” she trailed off, shaking her head again. “But no. No, this won’t work. It can’t. Not now.”
Calling her words disappointing would have been a massive understatement, even though I had suspected it was coming. But, hearing it right now, when I had been trying to just comfort her as a friend, stung particularly deep.
“I apologize for making you uncomfortable, Nova,” I said, sounding more aloof and formal with her than I ever had, even more so than I had when we were back on Earth and I wanted to protect her opportunities. She flinched as if I had struck her, and began speaking again.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jasper,” she said. “This isn’t because of anything you did. Quite the opposite,” she admitted.
“In that case,” I said next, mastering my voice, keeping all the hurt and anger out of it. “Maybe it’s too early for you to make a decision at all about your emotions, until you understand Vessa’s,” I continued. “Why don’t you ask me for time to explore your link with Vessa and her other Beacons, since right now we don’t even have the time and privacy to pursue a romantic relationship, and I am still working through my own feelings about your bond as well?”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re right, Jasper,” she said, guiltily. “I’ve... been more worried about how I feel. I never asked you if my feelings were mutual.”
“No,” I said. “You only brought it up because you thought you were about to die. Though in fairness, I could have clarified my intentions before then, too.”
“You wouldn’t have,” she mumbled. “You were too worried about my association with you harming me. And it probably would have, except that they had already learned who I was. I don’t know why they didn’t just grab me off the street.”
“I don’t either,” I confessed. “I guess they needed you oblivious in order to bait Vessa. Who knows? But for the record?” I screwed up my courage. “I think you’re amazing. I think your accomplishments are amazing, too. Maybe they pushed you through the program just to get to Vessa, but I saw the good you did back on Earth, Nova. You helped people. You changed lives for the better, back when you had power there. And you did that again on the planet we just left, saving the lives of thousands of people by protecting them and helping them evacuate. I think you’re beautiful, smart, and good, and I’d be honored to court you. And now that I know you’re part of Vessa, I’m trying to figure that out, too. So, maybe you need to wait on making ultimatums, because it’s not like the awkwardness is going to suddenly go away after you make your choice, is it?”
“No,” Nova agreed awkwardly. “I... you’re right, Jas. I’m sorry. I just felt like I wasn’t being fair to you, and so I just sprang this out of nowhere. I’m not sure I know what to do with everything. I agree. Let’s get back to our job at hand, before something surprises us.”
I nodded, and we turned our attention to the other rooms connected to this one, or at least those closest to us. The opening at the end led to a wide hallway, one that we couldn’t see the end of in the dark. But to our left and right were empty rooms that resembled the first room. That made sense, given how this space was supposed to hold most of the surviving crew in case of emergencies. Combined together, these three rooms just barely contained more space than Vessa’s sanctuary.
And best of all, they were completely empty, according to all three of our examinations, including Nestor’s. The little mouse had hung back from the fight earlier, to make
sure that nothing made it past me and into the emergency drive room. He had been the first to check the rooms immediately adjacent to us, since it made sense for one member of our group to search while the others stood guard. But the bareness of each room made them much easier to search, as it only left the corners and ceilings for potential hiding places.
“All clear,” Nova said in relief as we stepped back into the center room. “I hadn’t known this could be so terrifying. It feels like something’s going to jump out and attack us at any moment.”
“Please do not tempt fate by saying that out loud,” I replied, my weapon still drawn, eyes still watching the dark corridor on the other side of the main room. Nothing stirred yet, but I deeply wished for glowing eyes of my own.
“Fair enough,” Nova said, looking about herself with her own weapon still out. “But I’m glad we searched those two, because it turns out these three rooms are linked. I think the side rooms are sleep stations and this center one is for food and general quarters. But they all share the same power source, which is this center room. So once we walk to the other side and close the door leading to the corridors beyond, we should be safe to go get Vessa and get this room back online.”
I nodded, as Nestor suddenly squeaked at my feet. The little mouse began pulling on my pants leg, wrinkling his nose and chirping in alarm.
Bad-things, he sent to us both. Smell them.
“Right,” Nova said briskly. “Linking up and closing the corridor right now.”
We rushed as quickly as we could to the other side of the room, weapons still drawn. Nothing emerged from the other end of the hall, though Nestor’s hair began to bristle.
Soul Shelter (Soulship Book 2) Page 18