The Andromeda Project (The Cluster Chronicles Book 1)

by Jason Michael Primrose

  “Thank you,” he smiled, reaching his hand up for hers. It lingered there and she finally placed it on top.

  NEIGHT CASTER

  Washington, DC, May 2026

  A well-executed landing balanced out a rough takeoff. They sat in the ship, somehow aware that if they left, all that had happened would unravel like a poorly constructed garment. Allister was in trouble, Leesa was in trouble. Freedom evaporated once their feet touched the concrete floor of the hangar bay.

  “I don’t know what to say about what my father did. I can’t imagine why.” Leesa reached into her pocket and pulled out the dragon scale. She thumbed it through her hands.

  Allister ran his hands over his face. “I’m trying to put it behind me. It’s really hard. And you being here ain’t helping.”

  She stepped closer, eyes wild with vigor. Guiding her hand to his five o’clock shadow, Leesa pulled him down for a sensual kiss. “I have to find Neight.”

  And Allister had to be restrained. Armed soldiers flooded the room, tearing them apart, neither put up a fight.

  “I can’t protect you this time,” Leesa mumbled and left the hangar to carry out her promise to Amora. An investigation was in order.

  Neight stirred from an unplanned slumber, his claws morphed down to fingers. Increased dampener effects in the cell, based on the doctor’s suspicions of magic activity, drained him in startling ways. Humility wasn’t something often found in the alien’s emotional stream but he lost a valuable asset when Florence left the facility, as Allister wasn’t ranked high enough to help and Leesa wasn’t aware of his existence. Rabia’s unchecked advancement to the sole decision maker for the Andromeda Project had become dangerous for everyone, even Neight himself.

  Leesa emerged from shadows, watching him absorbed in his own thoughts. Neight’s hair fell as his eyes landed on her. “You should not be here,” he said, moving it out of the way.

  Leesa’s life was spent following in Nicolas’s footsteps. Never questioning him or disobeying him. She revealed more about her loss of identity, and mistrust of the man who raised her.

  “Come sit down, child,” Neight said. A small hole burned outward destroying the glass like paper.

  Leesa stepped through with her mouth open. If it was so easy for him to escape there must’ve been a good reason to stay.

  He placed his arms on her shoulders, for both of them it felt too comfortable. “You look beautiful,” he said first.

  She didn’t expect it to be his next sentence but Neight always knew what to say. After a momentary lapse in focus she straightened her stance and moved from their partial embrace. According to the project’s records he “ceased to exist.” She wanted an explanation.

  “I cannot die.” Neight changed the subject abruptly and apologized to Leesa. “I do not expect you to understand why I made those decisions.”

  “I don’t…what do you mean?” It was something Nicolas should’ve said to her years ago, but from the alien it made no sense.

  He stared at her, mustering the courage to calmly tell the story. Zosma was the youngest daughter of the king and queen of Uragon. The first of her kind born with two dominant alleles for wielding the famed energy source of the Uragonian people. A few incidents showed the destructive power that came with 100 percent access and everyone wanted the baby princess killed before she realized her full capabilities. Neight and Empresia believed they could raise her to use her energy for good. But things that powerful were meant to be exploited, to be hunted for use. A ruthless civilization of conquerors drove him out of the solar system and destroyed their planet, possibly the royal family too.

  “How could you be so selfish?” Leesa asked him. Blinded by confusion, she didn’t gather the gravity of the story and its significance to her. “The lives of your family, your people, I imagine billions weren’t worth more than this Zosma power.”

  “When I rest my brain from gathering knowledge about all of you and the goings on of Earth, I wonder if I would do things differently. And I—” Neight paused to look away, “I have not come up with an answer. I have to see how things go.”

  “See how things go!” she shouted. Neight was fixed to the wall with his feet dangling underneath. She let him down gently. Had to get those emotions under control at some point.

  He remained patient. “Time means little to me. When you have lived as long as I, you learn to be open. Sometimes the universe has other plans. Here on Earth your life is limited to fifty maybe one hundred years. I will live at least another century, possibly a millennium. And in one of many possible futures my actions are completely validated, justified and even repaired. I may have my retribution.”

  “Why are you still on Earth?” Leesa asked. The box they stood in wasn’t even sized properly for living and he’d been trapped over fifteen years. The organization painted him as such a heartless and rude monster, she didn’t know what to make of his gentle nature. “In here, no less.”

  “Because I am not leaving without Zosma,” Neight inhaled and motioned to her.

  “There’s no way.” Leesa shook her head and backed against the glass. “Am I her? How did I get here? Where is the power?” Everything she thought to be true unraveled inside of her mind. It was then her life made too much sense.

  Afraid the next part might end up emotionally catastrophic, Neight stood at the other end of the prison as she curled into herself. “I brought Zosma here to keep her safe from detection.”

  Neight admitted he built a machine to keep Zosma’s energy contained and invisible to their enemies. Located in Rabia’s lab behind a series of protected safeguards. Currently she fluctuated between 10 percent and 20 percent access to her power, which was fairly stunning considering what she accomplished. Images flashed of a crash landing on Earth. The little boy absorbing the energy into him, saving the town from complete destruction before Zosma could emit another pulse. Her eyes fluttered.

  “When Allister touched you…her, it activated his gene for wielding the energy, which changed his physiology.”

  A piece still missing. Neight asked her to sit down before he explained the last of the unsettling truth. When Nicolas came to him asking for a way to save his dying daughter and Neight had a perfectly healthy daughter who needed protection, they transferred Leesa’s mind into Zosma’s body. Since Zosma’s energy was locked within the containment cell, her consciousness stayed dormant. Leesa withdrew from him.

  “You were afraid of Zosma too. You took her away from your home and abandoned your family and then you trapped the two of you here? Trapped her inside of a machine and thought you were helping her?” Another hole opened in the prison, this time created by her.

  “I was afraid of what they would do to Zosma and simultaneously I had the chance to give you something I cherish dearly…life.”

  “You should’ve left me alone!” Leesa yelled. One of the glass cases shattered next to her. “What’s happening to me?” She remembered her first encounter with Allister during his interview, how the moment jolted her out of the false dream she’d been living. Besides being more connected to her powers, she manifested the blue energy in small doses. Leesa’s mind had trouble keeping out Zosma’s memories and the more other memories surfaced, the higher the chance Zosma would reclaim her existence. The problem was his daughter had no loyalty or connection to Earth.

  Leesa didn’t want to be living inside of someone else’s body but Neight wanted Zosma to have a bit of humanity; he felt it was the last ingredient to making her power manageable. Zosma and Leesa had already shared so much but the details of merging their psyches needed working out. “It is a shame Dr. Belladonna left the way she did,” Neight said.

  All of the visions had been of her other life, contributing to the spell’s undoing, which gave her human appearance and functionality. The cold, unfeeling, death robot daughter of Nicolas slipped away forever. Being split between two minds left the question about her feelings for Allister. Leesa was uncertain if Zosma would love him and how
he’d handle it if she didn’t. She was uncertain if he’d love “Lieutenant Delemar” if he knew what a monster Zosma was or what a weak human Leesa was. She clutched her midsection in angst. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “How did you like Dragozium?” Neight asked, closing the hole.

  “It was breathtaking.” Remembering its beauty, a smile unintentionally crossed her face, easing the uncertainty. “A little hostile.”

  “Did you tell them where I was?” he asked Leesa.

  “I didn’t have to.” She didn’t know him well enough to gauge his emotional stability. “Amora is alive. I thought you’d like to know. I wish I’d known when I was standing next to her that she was my…her sister.”

  Neight’s eyes shivered, the toxic tears eroded parts of the floor. He bowed to her graciously and fell with his back against the cot. Perhaps the Cruloids were destroyed after all those years. At least part of his family hadn’t perished. It was motivation enough to bring his time in captivity to an end. With all he’d learned about humanity in his years on Earth, he realized what Uragon had been missing but next time it would be different.

  “Keep an eye on Dr. Giro. He has clouded his intentions from me somehow.”

  Leesa didn’t hear him, a message on her watch announced Nicolas had come out of a coma.

  NICOLAS DELEMAR

  Washington, DC, May 2026

  The young soldier’s feet shuffled clumsily as he tried to keep up with her. “Dr. Giro has been commanding the base in his absence,” he sputtered.

  “I want to see my father,” Leesa repeated.

  “I’m not sure I can authorize. Dr. Giro assured us he’s cared for.” The soldier’s tablet wouldn’t load.

  She repositioned her hand, pinning him to the ceiling. “Consider it authorized,” Leesa seethed, dropping him to the floor.

  She burst into the makeshift hospital room and found only white paper sheets covering an empty metal cot.

  “They must’ve moved—” the soldier mumbled.

  The door swung against the wall with a bang. A nurse wheeled Nicolas in with his mouth open and head positioned uncomfortably to one side. Leesa felt light-headed, originally prepared for a heated argument, where she confronted her father for the vile things he’d done. But emotions ran freely through her like dogs without leashes and empathy sent a flood of pain to wash away the resentment. Nicolas erupted into a cough adding a fresh dose of blood to an already stained handkerchief. A gentle touch on his shoulder temporarily calmed the spell. Nicolas grabbed his daughter’s hand.

  Leesa held herself together on the wheelchair handle, it bent out of place as flashbacks of her human childhood played through her head. They ended as quickly as they began but the room didn’t stop spinning. “What happened to him?”

  The nurse handed her the chart and moved the wheelchair. “Let’s get you more comfortable,” he said.

  Nicolas settled onto the bed with some assistance and the nurse injected IVs and established breathing assistance. His age spots and cellular growths had multiplied at an alarming rate.

  “Why would you do this?” Leesa’s voice trembled while she read. A deep breath followed. “Why would you keep it from me?”

  “Because I was afraid.” He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I was afraid of you. Please forgive me.”

  Nicolas’s words meant everything to her they could mean at the time. It was confirmation the dying man in front of her was part of the lie she’d been living. She relaxed against the door, struggling to filter her thoughts.

  “I know the alien is alive.”

  “Please, excuse us,” he said to the nurse and the soldier wearily. They obeyed. He stared at the woman who should’ve resembled his deceased wife but didn’t because of the strange spell. “I’ve done…terrible things. Things I hoped you’d forgive me for one day, even though I never asked.”

  Nicolas could’ve let her go in peace, to be with her mother, but he didn’t want to be alone. He needed someone to live for, what better choice than a terminally ill baby. Accidents happen, even if they lasted for twenty-five years, and all he’d done was neglect her emotionally from the beginning, absorbed in the project. Nicolas managed to string her along as a pretend father until the location of the gems consumed her life as well. It was almost a partnership between them except the Andromeda Project was scary. Too Scary. So much at stake. So many variables. In his mind it was always what was best for her, but after the merger he had to control how much access she had to the world, to Zosma and the energy. Humanity needed to be protected from the thing inside of her.

  “Private Adams has the gems,” Leesa confessed. She didn’t care about any of his honesty. Nicolas would always be selfish. Even coming clean, knowing he’d die soon, it was for himself.

  “I might as well die now.” He immediately regretted his statement but it was true, he’d be killed by the directors either way. The outcome wasn’t part of anyone’s plan. He debated whether he preferred a quick death to the slow one he suffered. “I can’t fix this now.”

  Their silence broke with a fit of bloody coughing. It became more violent, the nurse rushed inside while radioing for the doctor. Noises from different machines warned about unusually low blood pressure, brain malfunction. The medicine wasn’t working. One of the incoming doctors instructed her to stand back while they stabilized him. An injection followed.

  Nicolas’s eyes closed, feebly reaching to get her attention. Leesa pretended not to see, unwilling to find the will or the way to go to his bedside. But he raised her with some semblance of familial loyalty and after learning about the sacrifices he made for her to live; there was only one resolution. Unfortunately, his life was beyond saving.

  “Tell him I—I forgive him,” Leesa said.

  LEESA DELEMAR

  Washington, DC, May 2026

  Nicolas’s office was open. She sat in his chair running her hands over the desk for anomalies. There was a big chance it wouldn’t even turn on without the right fingerprint recognition. Awards and honors from his military service hovered over her like thunderclouds. She’d been present at every ceremony after her birth, watching him with such pride and admiration. The glass beeped prompting a password. She put her birth name but erased it, not wanting to trip any access alarms.

  On the top level for Nicolas were the gems, the recruits which were her responsibility and below that were all of the secrets, the energy testing, hiding the alien in the basement and of course her most recent knowledge about Zosma as a living being. She entered Zosma. The screen welcomed her and pictures of them from when she was younger ballooned up in layers. Leesa scrolled through, reliving the pain of being paralyzed, dependent and by human standards, decrepit. In the last photo she accepted the role of lieutenant with a proud father next to her, she always hated the big hat. The little handicapped girl might as well have been dead.

  Leesa closed the folder containing the images and found something else behind it, a shared folder titled Zosma Energy. It closed suddenly and disappeared from the desktop. She stood up. “Office lockdown in progress,” the computer wailed. She backed away from the desk, telekinetically holding the office door open for her escape.

  The dim hallways seemed more bleak and dusty. Leesa walked with her head down, conflicted about her decision to take on Rabia for revenge. A shadowy figure headed toward her. She looked up a split second before running into him and reactively grabbed the figure, spun around, and forced him into the wall.

  “Good afternoon to you,” Rabia said. His kick to the stomach caused her to double over. A battle force field activated blocking his two follow-up attacks and she lifted him by the midsection to body slam him. Mist scattered to either side, erasing any impact, and settled into the floor. Unnaturally large hands came up and wrapped around her legs.

  “Why did you want him dead in the first place?” she asked.

  “I will not defend myself again.” The hands tossed Leesa down the hall. “He chose his path. I merely did what I
was told.”

  “Make them think it’s their idea,” she said, tossing her hair away. Two hulking bodies blocked her escape on both sides. Rabia was gathering stray molecules to devise more competitive combat formations. “He didn’t know what he was getting into.”

  “You poor little girl.” Light barely penetrated as both of Rabia’s creations moved closer and formed an inescapable sphere around her.

  Leesa relapsed to dormant claustrophobia from all those years in space. A flashback. The pod absorbing the Zosma energy, propelling her through the solar system, crashing against the asteroid in the Kuiper belt and breaching the hull. The middle of the solid circle trapping her separated then shattered to pieces. Leesa hovered as his mist gathered into a regular sized solid body again. She threw her hands out and he skidded across the concrete.

  “I am your new leader, stand down,” Rabia commanded.

  “I will not answer to you!”

  Rabia’s body turned to mist against his will, each glowing particle moved farther apart until he spread the length of the hallway. She sprinted to the lab, forcing the door open with an outward swing.

  Leesa ignored the computers, drawn to the operating room by her intuition. Those hands accessed limitless telekinetic power and metal seams running up the middle of the concave dome pealed downward, captivating blue light spilled from the tear. The containment center Neight built sat beneath. Tubes and wires attached were hooked up to a computer at the base of the glass dome. Its contents were a sea of swimming energy, amidst it, a dormant female figure.

  Zosma. The missing princess of Uragon. Same body as Leesa’s, only pure energy and distinct physical variations. She touched the glass without considering consequences. Somewhere inside her, it felt like she was looking at herself not an alien princess whose body she’d stolen. The containment center’s security activated, zapping her across the room. She crashed into a slew of tools, unconscious.

  Zosma opened her eyes, bombarded by the unfamiliar positioning of the stars. She no longer shone the color of the energy. Where did it go? The child wondered as she stumbled out of the ship and fell onto foreign soil. Uncertainty smothered any reason or problem solving ability. The questions plaguing her mind went unanswered…she’d been flying through space for months, years…her entire youth. What happened to Uragon? What happened to her parents? Her people? Did she destroy everything? Did someone else? Her disconnection from the energy caused a lapse in memory retrieval but Zosma used the side of the ship to stand and get a good look at what surrounded her, similar to home but less…technology. Their voices came at the same time as their weapons, encircling her, yelling and threatening concurrently. Zosma pleaded in her language, as she attempted to climb into the ship. Someone’s trembling finger slipped. A shot penetrated soft flesh. The alien princess dropped, grabbing the wound in her side to stop the purple liquid oozing out. A blood-drenched fist and angry eyes, charged with vengeance, warned the attackers; the fallen princess screamed, pounding against scorched leaves. The miniature pulse widened the crater incinerating all of the soldiers, but after that it was gone. No more defenses. The last thing she remembered was Nicolas lifting her up with ease; she was the size of a thirteen-year-old girl.