by Paul Tassi
“You,” the young Xalan said with uncharacteristic venom. She turned to them, a claw pointed at the woman. “She helped imprison Lucas. She was there when we escaped. When they all tried to kill us!”
“Jahane,” said Auran. “What is this madness? What have you done?”
She let out a short laugh, which caused blood to spurt out of her mouth. The tips of two white ribs were poking out through her tunic.
“I need medical attention,” she said. “I need—”
“Start talking,” Noah said sternly. She glowered at him.
“You said they weren’t ready,” she said, wheezing, turning to Auran. “Stoller thought otherwise. He commissioned the project nearly as soon as he forced you out.”
“What project?” Sakai spat out. “Why did you do this? How did you do this?”
“You Earthborn started multiplying the moment your hormones told you to.” Her moss-green eyes met Sakai’s furious gaze. “We said you were sterilized like Keeper Auran wanted, but Chancellor Stoller wanted to accelerate the project once he took office. None of you were ever infertile. As such, we didn’t create Colony Two, you did.”
“But … we would have known,” Sakai said, looking at the tank with her name on it. “How—”
“Ever catch the ‘parasite,’ my pretty young friend? Did any of your friends?”
Sakai’s eyes widened. “That was …”
“We’d—” Jahane coughed, spraying blood onto the floor. “We’d come in at night and perform the extraction as soon as the bio-readouts were flagged. Ensured complete unconsciousness of everyone present. Minimal recovery time. No one ever even suspected.”
“How many?” Noah asked. “How many are there?”
Jahane looked up at him; she was fading. Auran stood with his arms folded and wasn’t bothering to help her. No one was. She continued, hoping more information would save her.
“Eighty-six, last count. Though that abomination came through and took them all. Like he was picking berries from the bush, and discarding the staff like they were rotten fruit.”
Eighty-six. Eighty-six second-generation Earthborn. And at least one was his, from what he could see. He looked out across the room at all the other tanks they hadn’t examined yet. His heart was racing.
There were tears in Sakai’s eyes.
“Why did you have to take them from us? Why couldn’t you let us have them?” she said, her voice cracking.
“Chancellor Stoller insisted on a new training program when he took office. He wanted the new Earthborn to grow up to be his pets. Wanted to run fresh experiments that Keeper Auran refused to consider with the first crop. There were actually over a hundred at one point, but some of the tests … didn’t go well. Tricky, that biology of yours.”
Erik raised his pistol at her.
“You had no right,” he said icily.
Another bloody cough.
“We had every right. You are guests of this planet. You’re lucky we let you breed at all.”
Erik moved closer to her, gun raised.
“And you,” she said, locking eyes with him. “All those times, sneaking off the colony to bed those poor Soran girls from the dance clubs. Do you have idea how many died once you put a child in them with your carelessness? Mother and offspring both. Your poisoned human genes. I’d say no less than a half dozen of each perished from your lust.”
Erik’s face contorted with indescribable pain and rage. His finger rested lightly against the trigger.
“If the two species can’t mate, frankly, I don’t know why Stoller or any of them wanted more of you. If it were up to me I would have erased your entire subspecies for the good of Sor—”
A loud bang echoed throughout the room, and Jahane’s head snapped back, spraying blood up the side of the console. Erik looked down at his own gun, stunned, then realized it hadn’t fired.
Everyone turned to see Malorious Auran holding Sakai’s pistol in a shaking hand, the barrel smoking.
“Wretched woman,” he said. “If only I’d had the courage years ago.”
He turned to all of them, lowering the pistol.
“I am sorry,” he said, voice quaking. “I am so, so sorry. I should have stayed. I should have looked after you all.”
Kyra put her hand on his shoulder, and Sakai gently took her pistol back.
Everyone’s head turned when they suddenly heard a sharp cry bouncing off the metal walls of the room. An infant’s cry.
They left Jahane’s crumpled body and sprinted down the corridor. Only Keeper Auran stayed behind to unravel what other secrets the woman had buried in the colony’s data tree. Noah couldn’t read the names of the tanks as they raced by. I’m a father, he thought, as the cry pierced the air again. I’m a father. The emotion of it was so complex, it was impossible to categorize. Rage, fear, joy, all jumbled together. He couldn’t look at Sakai or Kyra. He was scared of what he would see on their faces. Another high-pitched wail.
At the end of the dimly lit hall, they found the source of the commotion. A child was crawling around at the base of a large metal door, wailing. It couldn’t have been more than eight months old, though Noah couldn’t tell its gender. It had dark skin and green eyes. Sakai quickly holstered her pistol and scooped the child up in her arms.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, rocking the baby, who immediately quieted down. Kyra gave a reassuring smile to the child who stared at her blankly, but reached out to grab her finger when she brought it near.
A loud groan came from the sides of the door as the mass of metal began to move sideways. Sakai turned her back to the opening, shielding the child, as everyone else raised their weapons.
The room was cavernous, baked in blue light. Children hung suspended in the air. They turned slowly, their eyes closed, their small chests rising and falling. Noah couldn’t count them, but he could guess. Eighty-five.
And at the center of them all, there he was, charred arms raised at his sides, floating eight feet above a raised docking platform. The Black Corsair, the man who had once been Mars Maston, in the middle of the collection. His blue eyes burned brightly.
“At last,” he said, his voice a multitude.
The SDI fanned out, all aiming their rifles at him.
“Don’t! Don’t shoot!” Sakai cried out. “You could hit the children!”
The SDI troops never had time to fire anyway. Almost as soon as Sakai finished speaking, the dozen-odd men contorted and screamed. Noah watched in horror as their limbs and heads were ripped off, and their chests were imploded or exploded by an unseen psionic force. The young blond SDI commander died after being torn messily in half, shrieking as it happened. Noah could hear his bones snap like branches breaking in a hurricane wind.
Noah tried to raise his gun, but his whole body suddenly spasmed and then froze. Both his rifle and his hammer clattered to the floor, and he saw Erik involuntarily drop his pistols. Neither of them could move, their arms locked rigidly at their sides. They began to float a few feet off the ground. Noah looked and saw Sakai also trapped, the rescued babe now floating out of her arms to join the others in the sky. Theta and Zeta were similarly stuck, hovering a foot or so off the floor.
“The Fourth Order has been punished,” the Corsair Maston said as he motioned toward the dismembered bodies of the SDI troopers on the floor. “The allied Xalans will be questioned. The humans will serve the Archon’s purpose.”
He peered at Kyra, the only one not dead or frozen in place.
“Civilian Soran, expendable.” He raised his arm toward her, Noah tried to cry out, but couldn’t.
“Wait!” she called out, raising her own hand.
Her blue eyes were wide, racing side to side, and she was trembling. Noah had never seen her look so afraid. You can’t surrender, he thought, straining against his imprisonment. He’s a monster, not a man. And yet, the Corsair listened.
Then, her demeanor changed. A new emotion crept across her face like she’d slid on a mask.
Noah had seen it before. He’d seen it when she looked at him that night aboard Stoller’s ship.
It was … love.
“Mars,” she called out, stepping out into the light. “It’s over.”
The ruined Maston peered at her suspiciously. She took another few steps forward and slowly let her scattergun tumble onto the ground.
Noah looked back and forth between Maston and Kyra. What is she doing?
Kyra reached the stairs, all living eyes in the room on her.
“You’ve served the Archon well,” she said. “And he’s kept his promise.”
Maston’s blackened features slowly shifted from anger to disbelief.
“Corinthia …” he exhaled. “It cannot be.”
Noah hung in the air as chills ran down his spine. He thrashed against his invisible chains, but could only move his eyes. He knew what she was doing, what she was trying to do, but it was insane, and unfathomably dangerous. And yet, he felt himself drift a little lower.
Kyra ascended the steps, blond hair dancing on her shoulders, her bodysuit a brilliant white, unstained from the bloody battle outside. A teenage Corinthia Vale, if there ever was one. Erik and Sakai watched her with looks of static fear.
“It’s over, Mars,” she repeated, wearing a wide smile Noah could have sworn was genuine. Maston blinked wet, electric eyes and began to descend himself. “You’ve won,” she continued.
And then, the Black Corsair, ravager of fleets, bane of Sora, and terror of all mankind … smiled. His feet touched the platform as Kyra reached the last step. All around him, the unconscious children were gently falling to the floor, and so were the live adults. Noah felt his feet touch the ground, though he still could not move. His rifle had bounced yards away, but his hammer was within his reach, if he could only bend down to reach it. He saw Erik eyeing his own pistol from his rigid position across the room.
Kyra strode toward Maston. Once she reached him, she raised her hand to his cheek, brushing the cracked, charred skin with her fingers.
Noah strained every muscle of his body trying to move. He could flex his fingers now, but that was all. He was trying to choke out words.
“N-no …” was all he could manage, his constricted throat emitting only a strangled whisper.
But then, Maston looked into her eyes. Her ocean-blue eyes.
“You aren’t her,” he said breathlessly.
“You aren’t him,” Kyra said with a look of utter pity. But even a moment’s distraction was enough. With a flick of her wrist, the knife was out of her sleeve, into her hand, and the blade was driven into his throat just as he grabbed for the handle. Blood spurted out all over Kyra’s white clothes as she stumbled backward away from the gasping Corsair.
When she turned to look at Noah, the fear had flooded back into her face. Noah was free the instant the blade went in and dipped to scoop up his hammer and race toward the pair of them. Kyra was still looking into his eyes as the staggering Corsair raised his blood-soaked arm.
The crack of her neck echoed throughout the room.
So did Noah’s scream.
Her blue eyes went vacant, and she crumpled to the floor.
Four other cries were bouncing around the chamber. Sakai held both hands to her mouth, and Theta and Zeta made unearthly wailing noises as they scrambled toward Kyra’s falling body.
Erik was still shouting as he raced at the Corsair. The disoriented creature veered toward him, one hand clawing at the knife in his throat, the other raised toward Noah’s brother. Even with his long strides, Noah was still too far away to do anything.
A bright gold beam shot out of Erik’s pistol and caught the Corsair right between his middle two fingers. He let out an deafening howl as his forearm was split all the way up to his elbow, and Erik continued to charge forward unimpeded, leveling another shot. But Noah reached him first.
He brought the hammer around in a diagonal arc and caught Maston in the collarbone just below where the knife was lodged. He heard a dozen bones shatter as the Corsair was smashed down into the circular loading platform. Noah stood over him and raised the hammer, this time bringing it down toward the Corsair’s head. His blue eyes flickered, then, for a moment, turned brown and filled with endless sorrow just before they disappeared behind the darksteel. The entire room shook from the blow. Noah pounded again and again unless the upper half of the Corsair’s body was nothing more than a stain on the warped metal. Noah dropped to his knees, dreading what he would see when he turned around.
There was his brother, holding Kyra, her head bent at a tragic angle, her blue eyes staring straight up, seeing nothing.
Auran had followed them. He ran to reach her and scanned her with something small and metal pulled from his robe. As he turned to Noah, the look on his face was pure agony.
“I’m sorry,” the old man said. But Noah didn’t hear him. There was a deafening ringing in his ears, and every inch of him was completely numb. Again Auran spoke, and this time the words pierced Noah through the heart.
“She’s gone.”
38
Lucas felt feverish the whole voyage, and his head ached each time waves broke against the hull of the ship. He kept to himself, crouched in a dark corner, his hood shielding his face from the few refugees who had made it onboard. Most were weeping and moaning in the dimly lit area. His mind had been jumbled ever since the Xalan ships had fallen out of the sky. He scratched his arm, and black flakes of skin peppered the floor. Peering inside his armor, he saw the darkness was starting to crawl onto his chest. His mind felt like cracked glass that would shatter completely at the slightest provocation.
It’s too much, he thought.
The power, the responsibility, all of it.
He watched families huddled together in the hold, the rich and poor together, all in torn, wet rags. Most had lost all their possessions, but they had at least kept their lives. That was more than could be said for many others on the planet. He couldn’t watch another world face extinction. It had to end here. He knew he had to find the Archon, but they the best way was through the Corsair, which was why he had to reach the colony. Well, that and to protect his family, and the young human men and women now being hunted because of Lucas’s displays of immense power. Why would the Archon need to sack a planet by force when he could raise an army of human Shadows to make the Sorans all bend their knee, or simply exterminate each other with little loss of Xalan life? That had to be why Lucas had been kept alive. But he refused to become a puppet again. He thought of the Soran soldiers on the ships he’d turned against one another at the listening post. He’d killed many enemies and even a few friends, but not so many innocents as in those few, brief moments. Not like that. It ripped at his insides, even now.
But he thought of the looks Torwind, Wisher, and the others had given him as he tortured the pillaging Xalans. He could barely even remember doing it. His grip on reality was starting to slip. How long until he turned into what Maston was? How cruel could he become?
He wanted to be rid of the powers now. These “gifts.” Before, he thought he needed them to help win the war, but now he feared if he didn’t shed his corruptive abilities, he might assist in ending the Great War the wrong way. Which was what the Archon had always planned.
Lucas kept his head down and put his hands to his temples. In his limited tunnel of vision appeared two tiny bare feet, muddied and bloody. He raised his head.
A boy stood there, no older than seven. He wore an oversized coat that nearly reached his bare feet. A damp bandage clung to the side of his head. It was crimson at the ear.
“I knew it was you,” the boy said, bending low to peek under Lucas’s hood. “Nobody believes me.”
“I’m not him,” Lucas said automatically, meeting the boy’s gaze with his iced eyes. The child’s eyes were almost as blue as his. “Go back to your parents.”
“You are so,” the boy said, pouting. “You look different, but you are so.”
Lucas glared at the chil
d, and thought about mentally forcing him away. But before he could, the boy sat down and leaned against the wall next to him.
“Will you save us again?” the boy asked earnestly. “I wasn’t born the last time, but I heard about it from my parents. They said you were a hero. But they said you died.”
Lucas scoffed, and rubbed his eyes.
“Maybe I did die. Maybe all of this is just a dream.”
Immediately the boy reached out and gave Lucas’s good arm a hard pinch.
“Ow!” he exclaimed, rubbing the spot. “What was that for?”
“You aren’t dead,” the boy said matter-of-factly. “This isn’t the Forest. My parents said it’s a nice place. This isn’t a nice place.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Lucas agreed.
“Why aren’t you with Miss Asha?” the boy asked, relentless.
“I’m trying to find her,” Lucas said. “That’s why I’m on this ship. And to find my sons.”
“And to save us,” the boy added.
“That too, hopefully,” Lucas sighed.
Lucas scanned the other clusters of people onboard, trying to find any worried-looking parents so he could send the kid back to them.
“I hope the Forest is nice,” the boy said. “I hope everyone there is happy.”
The Blessed Forest. The Soran’s mythical, eternal paradise of light and life. There was a time Lucas had believed in heaven, but those days were long past. He’d seen death now. It wasn’t pretty or joyful. It was an abyss. Sometimes Lucas was scared he’d stared into it for too long. And once he returned from the brink, he was never the same. Never could be the same.
“They’re happy,” he said. It was the only thing to say, he supposed.
“They can see Mira again,” the boy said, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
“Who can?” Lucas asked. “And who’s Mira?”
“My parents,” the boy said, eyes downcast. “My sister. They’re all in the Forest now.”
The boy yawned.
“Find Miss Asha and make the monsters go away. Kyneth and Zurana won’t, so you have to. Like you did before.”