Hybrid

by K. T. Hanna

  Sai stops, ducks a punch, and throws her heel into the back of the domino’s knee, sending it to the ground. It rolls and jumps back up to the balls of its feet as the answer hits her like a jolt.

  “No time now, Mathur. They’re good. I have to go.”

  Mathur looks at her, one eyebrow raised in question. “You have to go? Are you injured?” He glances down at his notes with a frown, as if sure there’s no way she could be.

  “Not at all. I’m energized. So energized, in fact, I have to go try something out before I either lose the nerve or forget the idea.”

  “Try what out?” Iria has stopped her sparring match now and is curious as well.

  “I’ll let you know if I’m successful, but if I am...I think I’ll have figured out a way to use that technique as the weapon we need it to be.”

  The arrow of light flies through the air so fast her eyes can barely track it, only to land smack in the middle of her makeshift target. Inside a split second, the dummy she’s using disintegrates, a halo of power radiating out several feet. Sai looks down and blinks at her hands, glad she chose to position it in the middle of the room. “It works...” she murmurs, surprising herself with the realization. “Wow! It works!” She feels like jumping up and down, the same way she did as a small child when her parents had bought her a cheap teddy bear on the one birthday they’d remembered.

  “What works?”

  Sai turns around and cringes at the expressions on Mason’s and Dom’s faces. Maybe she should have waited for them to catch up to her.

  “Sai...” Dom’s voice is full of concern, lower pitched than usual, as if he’s encouraging her to tell him a secret. “Mathur was worried.”

  Sai mentally kicks herself. The old man has enough to worry about without her dashing out of the training room after she’d promised to help him. “Well, you see...we were sparring and I was using the method Bastian taught me to reinforce my abilities and I started adapting it and then I realized I could adapt the coating—that’s what he used to call it—in a way which would actually make handling that much power so much easier and safer and probably focus it more definitively, and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up but it worked...” She shrugs helplessly, not sure how much sense she just made, and gestures to the obliterated target. “See?”

  Sai really hopes they see, because damned, if it wasn’t draining.

  “How many shots?”

  “Just one.” She lets herself slump to the floor and stretches out her calves, which are whining like a teething baby.

  “And you’re still standing.” Mason looks down at her, his brows pinched. “Or, at least, you’re still awake and were standing.”

  Sai nods and smiles. “Yep. I’m still coherent, too.”

  Dom is over at the target, a frown on his face as he fingers the crumbling composite base. “It’s not as powerful as what you obliterated that patrol with. But if it leaves you conscious so that you can recoup some energy and keep fighting? It’s worth it.”

  Sai nods and grins. “Exactly what I was thinking. See, when I reinforce my epidermal layers, just put a little steel and a bit of protection behind them, I create a stronger outer shell. It’s harder to damage. Not impossible, mind you, although perhaps I could adapt some of the adrium in my system...” She absentmindedly rubs at her legs.

  “Not now, Sai.” Dom shakes his head, and dons that odd excuse for a smile lingering on his lips. “Don’t even think about that yet. Maybe when you have time to not kill yourself with a mistake, okay?”

  She laughs at the irony. “I promise. I won’t fiddle with that quite yet. But still, basically I adapted my psionic energy to the...I guess you might call it the frequency of the core inside me? Does that make sense?” She waits for Dom’s nod before continuing. “I was building up to help me contain the power, and then I tapped into it. That way the ball or sphere or whatever you want to call it was solid and stable. I could extract and focus the energy and voila! I’m still conscious, right?” Sai pinches her arm. and rubs the spot ruefully. “Sorry for that. Sometimes I dream vividly.

  “So you can harness this now?”

  She nods at Mason, who’s looking at her intently. His overcoat, so similar to the one Bastian wears, hangs limply on his frame, and she frowns at the sight.

  “Not only can I harness it, but I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Aishke and Iria—not to mention James and you—will be able to grasp this so quickly that you’ll think you were born doing it.”

  “Aishke’s awake?” Dom glances over from his inspection with mild surprise.

  “She woke up earlier. I’m going to see her tonight. This will thrill her.” Sai hits herself in the head and falls back onto the mats. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”

  If she had, their location might not be pinpointed. If she had, their current situation might not be so dire. If she...

  “Stop that, Sai.” Mason’s words whoosh out softly, tiredness in each syllable.

  “I’m not doing anything,” she pouts.

  “Yes, you are. Like teacher, like student. My brother plays the exact same what-if game with himself all the time. You need to cut that out. We can’t change anything, and even if we could, maybe it wouldn’t have been what we needed right then. There could have been other consequences we’re unaware of. So cut it out and be happy you’ve figured this out now.”

  “You’re right.” She shakes her head and picks herself up off the floor. The wooziness is gone and her energy is returning. “I need to refine it, though. If I spend the next few hours on it and get a good night’s sleep, I’ll be ready to instruct others in the morning.”

  Mason looks at her. “Done. Can I watch?”

  She pauses for a second and whispers, knowing Dom can probably hear them anyway. “If you tell me what’s wrong with you when we have a spare moment?”

  The lines on his face grow hard. Annoyance flickers through his eyes, or perhaps it’s resignation because he sighs softly. “Deal.”

  “Also as long as you don’t attempt it without making me aware first. I can correct you if I’m watching. I can’t if I’m not. I don’t want another Aishke.” Her tone falls quiet at the end, and a moment of silence follows.

  “We don’t need to give them any more help finding us than we already have, right?”

  Sai laughs, feeling better than she has since before Aishke’s accident, and focuses her sight inward.

  The morning after Dom’s arrival, the first communication hits. Sai wakes up as Aishke walks through her door, face paler than usual but eyes bright in intensity. “Sai, Iria’s come for you. You’re needed in the navigation room.”

  Immediately awake, Sai jumps out of bed and drags her body armor on. She buckles the boots she favors over the typical runners and nods to Aishke as she heads out of the door. “You take it easy. You’re supposed to be recovering.”

  She falls into an easy jog with Iria a moment later, to get them there that whole minute faster. “What is it?”

  “They hit their first target a day sooner than anticipated. Sai...it sounds bad, and we have no one we can send fast enough.”

  Sai nods and steps into the room, heart pounding in her ears. “How far away is it?”

  “Three quarters of a day.” Mason’s tone is grim as his hands fly frantically over the control panel in front of him.

  “That far?” She controls her temper and resists smashing her fist into a nearby desk. Maybe they played into the GNW’s plans by scattering so widely. “Is there no way to make it in time?” It’s more of a statement than a question, and no one answers her except Dom.

  “Not even in Mele.” It’s all she needs to gain perspective.

  She closes her eyes and reaches, feeling the darkness rear its head. She pushes down on it, sapping only a minimal amount of its strength to boost her sensory vision. It’s there, just on the edges—nothing exact, nothing visible, just out of her reach. She frowns and snaps a surge of power at t
he sulking shadows trying to leak from the adrium in her system. They back away, a slight hesitance to them, wariness.

  “Is there any good news?”

  “Some.” Mathur sounds grim and bags hang under his eyes.

  She knows he had to have had a sleepless night since Dom got there with the kernel. Not only is he in the middle of reconfiguring the dominos, but now he’s also working on the pulse machine that will theoretically save them all. “And it is?”

  “They started the attack too close to sunrise.” Dom moves away from the viewing window. “Gamma sustained some damage, but while it can move during the day, not even the Damascus can accompany it. Their distress call came via their communication chip, because their normal transmission beacon was damaged. We could only send brief coordinates to them. If we leave now, we could maybe save what’s left.” He glances at the sun. “Mele can’t carry more than eight or nine people. I’m not sure what use that’d be.”

  It’s there, in the middle of the room as big as an ox. Eight or nine people will ensure death for them if the Damascus contingent is anywhere near big enough to be effective. Yet to stand back and do nothing is to condemn a whole Mobile to death.

  Mason stands up, suddenly looking weary and far too old for his age. Sai fights the urge to hug him and tell him everything will be okay.

  “We have four vehicles capable of traveling at maximum speed during the day. It will take them about eighteen hours to reach the site. They know as well as we do how far away help is. We can’t risk leading the Damascus back to our other forces. As cold-hearted as it sounds, the best we can probably do for anyone until the dominos are up and running is make our way to pick up any survivors.”

  Silence falls over the room. As true as his words might be, part of Sai rebels against it, wants to help and save the people she’s never met. Realistically, they all know Mason is right.

  “We’re running out of time, though.” Dom breaks the silence. “I can go with you this round, but I need to leave in a few days. Unless Mathur can finish the device beforehand, I have to make sure Bastian is safe.”

  Mathur shakes his head. “I am pushing it as it is to finish. It took us two months to do it originally; there is only so much time I can shave off it now.” His skin hangs, like he’s lost weight, and for a moment Sai wants to tell him to stop, to find someone else to take the stress off his shoulders. But ultimately he created the only two chances they have for survival now, and like it or not, they need him.

  “We’ll take three teams and make sure they understand we cannot intervene. We won’t have the people or firepower. Gamma is executing evasive maneuvers. We have to hope they can hold it off and that the Damascus can’t somehow tap into our communications. Maybe we’ll make it in time to help in some way.” But Mason doesn’t sound very convinced or very convincing.

  Sai nods and starts to leave, but Mason grabs her arm gently, stopping her. “Not you, Sai. You’re staying here. I need you to train a few of James’ people whose talents are exhibiting signs of good psionic strength. Cadets Darrien, Michael, and Argyle. They’re fresh recruits, and they need to be trained yesterday. Crash course the hell out of them. Understood?”

  It’s an effort to keep the glare off her face, but she understands his reasoning. Sai nods. “Understood.” But the word comes out snappier than she intended. “I’m sorry. I just...”

  “You want to test out that bolt, don’t you?” Mason looks away and doesn’t wait for an answer. “I know how you feel. Do you think it’s easy to tell our people not to interfere in a losing situation like this? There are a lot of ifs and buts, but overall? If it means I might preserve more people by giving that order, I’ll give it.”

  The message hits her consciousness like a sledgehammer, tossing her to the ground. Sai rolls and groans, and then all the images pour into her mind at once. Dismembered body parts scattered across the desert, baking in the sun. Limbs and dangling intestines wedged in the shutting mechanisms of the loading bays, causing the ramps to open and close in a strange parody of a laugh.

  She retches, gagging, and rolls to her feet in one smooth movement, wiping at the spittle on her chin without any trace of embarrassment. Sai can’t pinpoint who sent her the images, who sent her the message, but it doesn’t matter how clumsy it was, only what it is.

  “Aishke, take over class. Show them what you know. Iria, come with me.”

  The images superimposing themselves over her vision are worse than anticipated. She stops by Mathur’s lab, knowing instinctively she’ll find Kayde there.

  “We have a problem.” And it hurts her to say it, to admit it, but there’s no time for feelings or emotions or regrets. “Kayde find Jeffries and send him. Tell him we have incoming wounded. There’s no way I can heal all of them.”

  She’s gone before they can ask questions, fighting the stupid tears that threaten to overwhelm her, and when they escape, she ignores them. Iria walks beside her, keeping up despite the speed Sai moves at now her legs have fully adapted. Sai isn’t sure what she’d do without her friends. She reaches over and squeezes Iria’s hand briefly. “I need you to go to the hospital wing. Grab Marlena and all the supplies you can carry or fit in a cart.”

  “Won’t Kayde get her when he grabs Jeffries?”

  “He’s not there. He’s helping Mason.” She doesn’t tell Iria why. Not everyone needs to know that Mason’s psionic channels have been bleeding out and sometimes he needs help. He’s wearing himself out, and the sad thing is, they don’t have time for him not to. When this is over, he’ll need weeks of rest.

  When Iria leaves her side, Sai feels suddenly alone, like she’s the only one on this huge contraption. But it’s no excuse to fail in what she has to do.

  She arrives at the empty cargo bay. As the ramp lowers itself silently, there’s still only dust in the distance. A thin red coating of dirt starts clinging to the bottom, like the blood that’s been shed. She can feel the thrum of the Mobile as it slows to docking speed.

  The anger twists up and around her esophagus, threatening to choke her in a fit of rage, but she pushes it down, despite the lingering darkness it leaves. Dom always said it was dangerous, that you had to control it, and yet it needs to be a part of her. If what the message told her is true, she’ll be drawing on any reserves she can shortly.

  By the time the first transport hits the bay, Jeffries and Marlena are there. Sai bites her lip to prepare herself for the worst. Except the worst has nothing on this.

  Someone stops in front of Jeffries. “Eighty-seven survivors. Technically...” He keeps his voice low. His face looks a little familiar—and a bit green. His eyes shift from side to side, not focusing on anyone. Sai recognizes him as Walstein, which is good, because his name shield is covered in gore.

  All the bodies become a blur of wounds. There are no faces, no designations. There’s only reaching into herself to fuel the power she needs to knit wounds, piece together veins sluggishly pumping out blood, set bones, and tap into the healing centers to speed the recovery.

  Sai loses count of how many people she tends; the only things that are real are her power levels and how many more she can help and a vague sense that all the time in the world still isn’t enough.

  “Hold still,” she murmurs, holding a hand on her patient’s chest, pretty sure she just slurred her words. “You don’t let me staunch the leak of blood into that lung, and you’ll be doing a lot of fertilization soon.” The guy leans back on his pillow, face pale—although to be fair that’s probably from blood loss and not her words. Sai dives in, pulling on her power.

  But it doesn’t respond, so she digs deeper, only to be rewarded with the clear pool of doom. She hesitates just long enough for a darkened tendril to sneak out, like a peace offering, and she grasps it, steadies it, and allows it a minimal amount access.

  The power the parasite lends to her psionics is slimy, like she’s bathing in grease, unclean and oily. Yet her results are the same. Blinking, she withdraws from her pa
tient, whose color is already improving, and sighs.

  But when they pull his table away to line up the next one, she stumbles. A hand on her shoulder steadies her, and she looks up through dark-tinged sight to see Jeffries.

  He smiles. It’s a pallid version of the proper expression, but it does the trick. Sai relaxes, and all her muscles begin to feel like mush.

  “You know, Sai, I’d say you have a crappy bedside manner, but I’ve never seen so many people saved by one person.”

  “Screw my bedside manner.” Sai blinks at her own voice. It’s a sibilant, almost drunk sound, nothing like her normal timber. She clamps down on the adrium’s eagerness and banishes the darkness back. None of that. Not even for this. Not yet.

  Jeffries chuckles, even while Sai fights to stay upright. “I’ve never seen the healing gift in action this way before. Impressive.” He gives her a gentle shove, which ends up with her on a bed herself.

  “Hey,” she says, struggling to sit up, only to have two different hands push her back down. One is Jeffries, and apparently the other is Dom.

  Jeffries winks at her. “Yes, I brought backup because you’re stubborn.” And with that, he walks away.

  Sai wants to glare at him, but the energy fails her. “What?” she asks Dom.

  “You overdid it. And I hate to tell you, but that weird sort of frustration and anger thing you’ve got going on?”

  Sai blinks at him and slowly nods as he starts wheeling her bed along the corridors.

  “It’s leaking out to pretty much the whole Mobile.”

  “What?” She can’t believe it and checks her shields, only to find their strength is weakened. “I pulled that much...” Damn it. How careless. She needs to set her own alarms for them.

  “It’s okay,” Dom says, that odd smile on his face briefly. “I’m shielding you. I can’t heal like you unless I can tap into the patient’s own healing ability, and you’re the only one here who has that. This was the least I could do.”