The tactical command thrown in at the end of her sentence confused Yen and his hesitation almost resulted in the death of him and his team. Tilting the wings of his Cair hard to the right, a heavy metal slug nearly half the length of his ship went flying by. Painted dark colors, it virtually vanished into empty space as soon as it had gone a few hundred feet beyond him. On the console, the radar was blinking wildly. The Destroyer, though unable to fly, still had a full complement of weapons. Dozens of rail gun slugs were filling the space behind Yen.
“We need to get out of here, now!” Adam yelled as another slug narrowly missed their ship.
“Keryn, get out of there,” Yen called into the radio. On the radar, however, Yen saw the blue dot signifying the Cair Ilmun growing further away rather than closer. Instead of retreating with him, Keryn was actually charging the Destroyer.
“What are you doing?” he yelled into his microphone.
“No one fires at me,” Keryn hissed. “I’m going to make sure they never do it again!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There was a pattern to the rail gun slugs and plasma missiles. It pounded like a heartbeat. Fifteen seconds between each volley of eight metal slugs. Seventy-one seconds to load and launch a new plasma rocket. Keryn couldn’t believe that she had never seen it before. It was so simple and predictable. Realizing the pattern, Keryn was able to find the surprisingly wide gaps in the Destroyer’s defensive fire. Rolling to the right, she easily avoided the next round of rail gun fire. Keryn accelerated quickly, knowing she had fifteen seconds to close the gap on the Destroyer before it was able to fire again. By then, she knew, she’d be ready to skirt their next assault.
She had been surprised to find a similar pattern amongst the Terran fighters. Behind each of the fighters, Keryn had traced their trajectory, drawing imaginary lines through the empty space. The numbers danced across her vision as the fighters wove around one another in seemingly random patterns. Tracking their movements, Keryn had computed the complex mathematical equations in her mind, revealing a simple and predictable pattern in their intricate weave. The numbers made order of their seeming chaos. After that, it had been a simple matter of pulling at the loose threads in their weave, eliminating one fighter after another until nothing remained.
Undaunted by now facing a full Destroyer, Keryn found herself giggling in the cockpit of the Cair Ilmun. Had someone asked her if she thought it were possible for a transport ship to bring down a Terran warship, Keryn would have called them crazy. Yet maybe she was the crazy one. Here she was, diving toward a Destroyer easily a hundred times the length of her own ship. Yet she knew that it was all too possible, if the pilot only had the knowledge she possessed. Knowing that she was going to succeed on what should have been a suicidal mission just deepened her laughter. With a sharp realization, Keryn recognized the strange emotion brewing in her chest. It wasn’t hysteria like she first believed, it was merriment. She was enjoying herself.
Keryn was stunned by her overwhelming sense of glee. She was getting ready to obliterate a Destroyer, potentially killing thousands of Terrans on board. While she felt no sense of guilt at their deaths since they were her enemy, happiness seemed like the wrong emotion to feel at a time like this. Keryn shook her head to try to break free of the weird sensation, but the sadistic joy remained like a shell encasing her mind.
As Keryn sat confused, her lips started to move though the words were not her own. “Stop fighting me,” her own voice filled the cockpit. “You made your choice, now accept it.”
Though it sounded odd to hear it speak outside of her own mind, Keryn knew the Voice as soon as it began. She fought for control, pulling back hands that yearned to fly the ship in spite of her mental orders. Her body struggled against her commands, leaving her fingers curling inward like claws, but never fully leaving the console.
“Stop this!” Keryn heard herself yell. “You’re going to get us killed!”
The warning claxon sounded from the radar screen. From eyes she didn’t control, Keryn saw the next barrage of rail gun slugs being fired from the Terran warship. Relinquishing control momentarily, Keryn’s fingers flew over the controls, turning the Cair Ilmun aside at the last possible moment to avoid the metal projectiles. Once they were clear and Keryn knew she had another fifteen seconds to spare, she made a move for control of her body.
A grunt escaped her lips as she tried to force them to move. “Give me back my body,” she muttered through a nearly paralyzed mouth.
“It’s not yours anymore,” the Voice replied. “You chose to merge. Now unless you intend for us to die out here, then leave me alone so that I can finish what we came here to do!”
Keryn maintained a symbiotic control only moments longer before conceding to the Voice. She felt sickened by the thought of no longer being in control. She had been relegated to an outside observer for her own actions. It made her stomach turn, a feeling that was personified by the nausea she now felt. In all aspects, she was still firmly entrenched in her own body. All sensations were hers to share. To a degree, she assumed, so were the decisions they made. But the Voice was now driving and Keryn was little more than a passenger, navigating the road.
She felt drained. Even the meager fight for her hands and lips had taken its toll. Mentally, Keryn felt exhausted. Internally though, hidden from the prying eyes of the Voice, Keryn smiled. Their roles were now reversed, with Keryn acting as the conscience to the sadistic ideations of the Voice. But, more than just being able to speak her mind, Keryn knew that her personality that had existed before had not been completely erased. For the other Wyndgaart who were willing participants in the merger, Keryn surmised, the eradication of their previous personality was probably the case. But Keryn still existed. No matter how suppressed, she could now bide her time until the Voice gave her an opening.
Dodging easily out of the way of even the computer controlled plasma rockets, the Cair Ilmun descended further toward the Destroyer. The mathematical projections of rates of fire remained etched across her vision, but deep in the recesses of her mind, another memory began to surface. Overlaid on the massive Terran warship, a secondary image coalesced. In all respects, the ghost image looked very much like the Destroyer it mimicked, though subtle differences could be found. The nose of the ship was less defined, leaving the appearance of an unfinished vessel. Many of the gun ports that existed on the true Destroyer were missing in the overlapping picture. Even the length of the ship was smaller in the reflective image. Realization of what she was seeing came unbidden to Keryn’s mind, as though images and pictures that she had never seen were now readily accessed. It wasn’t just a ghost image Keryn saw. It was a memory.
Somewhere in the confines of the Voice, there existed a Wyndgaart who had fought in the Great War, the first time the Alliance and the Terrans had faced one another in combat. The Terrans had made some impressive improvements to the Destroyers since that time, but the adage remained the same: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Delving into that memory, Keryn replayed the other’s experiences of approaching a Destroyer nearly a hundred and fifty years before. That long lost Wyndgaart had boarded the Destroyer and found her way through the ship, fighting toward the weapons bay that was housed in the front of the Terran vessel. In her memory, Keryn saw the piles of metal slugs being lifted by the heavy mechanical forklifts. To each side, she also saw rows upon rows of the powerful plasma rockets queued in preparation for launch. And as the ghost image began to evaporate, dispersed like a fine vapor as the modern day Destroyer launched another volley of plasma rockets, Keryn realized why that memory had been pulled to the forefront by the Voice. Sinking deeper within her own mind, Keryn smiled at the plan that was formulating.
The seconds ticked by in her mind like a pounding metronome as the Cair Ilmun wove through the suppressive fire.
Twenty.
They slid past the next series of metal slugs.
Thirty-five.
They had less time to maneuver
out of the way of the slugs the closer they got to the Destroyer.
Fifty.
Were it not for the lightning quick reflexes of the Voice, Keryn was sure they would have been destroyed long ago. However, she knew there would only be one more volley.
Sixty-five.
The Destroyer consumed most of the view from the cockpit as the Cair Ilmun flew straight for the front of the warship. The rail gun launches were dangerously close, though the Voice kept the ship skimming past their attacks. Keryn felt the excitement and bliss building inside of her again and it sickened her. Still, she knew the math as well as the Voice. It would be fifteen seconds until the next rail gun launch, but this would all be over in less than six.
Keryn felt the Cair Ilmun jerk as it fired one of the few plasma rockets in its reserve. The shot was perfect, as she knew it would be. When it came to combat, everything the Voice did was perfect. The small plasma rocket sailed toward the front of the Destroyer as the Cair Ilmun banked and began accelerating away. Behind her, the missile sped forward, taking nearly five seconds to cover the remaining distance between the two ships. Just as the sixth second ticked by, seventy-one seconds since the last missile launch from the Destroyer, the Cair Ilmun’s perfectly fired rocket entered the rightmost missile port on the Terran warship, just as the Terrans fired their own rocket volley. The two missiles struck one another inside the tube connecting open space to the weapons bay. The resulting explosion ripped open the side of the Destroyer as superheated plasma roared back down the missile port, filling the weapons bay with a deadly inferno. Consuming the rows of awaiting plasma rockets, the Cair Ilmun’s shot set off a chain reaction of explosions. One concussive blast after another ripped the front of the Destroyer apart, peeling back the metal plating on the nose of the ship, splitting the hull and exposing over half the ship to the vacuum of space.
The Voice quite vocally cheered their success as the Cair Ilmun shook from the shockwave as the Terran Destroyer was annihilated, filling the cockpit with the laughter Keryn had already come to despise. Her hands were now free from the controls as the Voice reclined in the pilot’s chair, reveling in her victory. Unassuming, the Voice didn’t notice the faint smile that was cast upon Keryn’s lips. Moments too late, she felt the adrenaline pumping through her body and her heart rate increasing.
Pulled from underneath Keryn’s head, her hands closed around her throat. Choking in surprise, the Voice lost control of her mouth as Keryn’s words poured through it. “I want my body back, you bitch!”
Growling, the Voice quickly reasserted itself, though it still struggled to pull free the suffocating hands. “You made your choice. It’s not your body any longer.”
As the hands constricted around Keryn’s throat, the cockpit started to grow dark. Her vision narrowed until it was little more than a tunnel as the darkness closed in around her. Slowly, the darkness slipped further inward until her vision was little more than a pinprick before darkness consumed it all.
The blackness melted quickly away, replaced with a desolate brown world of cracked clay ground and an undistinguishable horizon. Keryn was standing before a mirror, the reflection of which sneered angrily at her.
“What do you think you are doing?” the Voice yelled from the mirror. “You could have killed us! Right now we’re floating unconscious in the middle of a warzone! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I can’t live like this,” Keryn said calmly, in a tone that seemed to surprise the Voice. “I thought merging was the right decision at the time, but I’ve quickly learned that it was a mistake. You don’t deserve my body.”
The reflection smiled maliciously. “That is a great speech, Keryn. I respect the sentiment. But I’m a much bigger part of you than ever before. Exactly how do you intend to get rid of me?”
“I want you out of my body,” Keryn whispered, her voice carrying over the empty terrain.
“Excuse me?” the Voice asked, arching an eyebrow.
Keryn looked up, locking her gaze with that of her reflection. More sternly, she repeated herself. “I want you out of my body.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” the Voice said, though her tone had lost some of its luster. “I’m inside of you now. You can’t just…”
“I want you out of my body,” Keryn interrupted. She could feel the strength welling inside of her.
“Stop saying that,” the Voice demanded.
“I want you out of my body.”
“Shut up!” the Voice yelled. It looked nervously left and right. Reaching out, it tested the confines of the mirror, but found it to be a prison.
Keryn took a step forward. The Voice fell silent, watching her every move. For seemingly an eternity, the pair just stared at one another until finally Keryn broke the silence.
“I want you out of my body.”
Though the words were whispered softly, the effect was dramatic. Keryn’s body was wracked with pain as her arms flew out wide. Internally, it felt as though she were being ripped in half. She struggled against the pain, biting down on her bottom lip until she felt blood spill into her mouth and a coppery taste coated the back of her throat. Before her, the mirror cracked down the middle. Spider webs extended from the image of the Voice, who howled in anguish. Focusing her attention inward, Keryn clutched the two halves of herself, the parts that had begun to separate and tear apart, torn in opposite directions. The mirror before her shattered, spraying shards of glass into the air. As though in response to the breaking of the mirror, Keryn’s body swelled as hands and faces pressed against her skin from inside her body. Tilting her head back, Keryn screamed in pain as she felt the hands break free from her body, exploding outward. From her, a hundred Wyndgaart were flung from her body in all directions, filling the air with limp forms that flew vast distances away.
Keryn’s eyes flew open and she let out a blood-curdling scream that filled the cramped cockpit. Back in reality, she groaned from the ache in her chest and the pain throbbing in her lower lip. Reaching up, her fingers came away bloody where she had bitten nearly clean through the flesh. Pausing momentarily, she waited for the telltale sound of the complaining Voice, but it never came.
Sitting upright, Keryn found herself feeling strangely hollow. There was a vast emptiness, one that had been filled for so long that she never knew the extent of the bottomless pit that existed within her. Strangely, it saddened her immensely, yet scared her at the same time. The Voice was gone; silent regardless of Keryn’s internal search for some glimmer of its existence. Shaking softly, Keryn knew that a part of her heritage and genetics had been wiped away in a single act of self-preservation.
Though the loss of the Voice pained her, it wasn’t the most frightening thing to Keryn. She had succumbed to the Voice because she had been caught in a moment of weakness. Ever since she was a young child, Keryn had always assumed she was strong-willed. Yet when faced with adversity, she had caved and fled to the Voice for protection and comfort. It made her feel weak, as though she would always be reliant on others for her protection. Anger welled within her at the thought.
Keryn was so deep in her introspection that the suddenly blaring radio scared her enough that she let out another cry of surprise.
“Magistrate Riddell, this is Magistrate Xiao. Are you okay?”
Keryn frowned. The Voice had left her feeling weak and vulnerable. Keryn realized as Yen called over the radio that this wasn’t the first time she had felt vulnerable. Try as she might, Keryn couldn’t deny the fact that she was falling in love with Yen. Every time she was around him, she reveled in the comfort he offered. He filled her with a confidence that she couldn’t manage on her own. For that reason, if for no other, it frightened Keryn to know that she would soon have to be around him again. Her merger with the Voice had, in no way, lessened her love for the psychic warrior. But it was that love, and the weakness that accompanied it, that Keryn feared would leave her too vulnerable once again. With great trepidation, she activated the microphone.<
br />
“This is Riddell,” she said curtly. “I’m fine.”
“Thank the Gods!” Keryn cringed at the evident relief that she knew was coming. Yen continued, “Follow us back to the Revolution. I am so glad to hear…”
Keryn reached up and turned off the radio. Though she felt bad for Yen, she felt her sympathy quickly turn to irritation. She had put herself in this situation by relying too heavily on the help of others. First the Voice and now, she realized, the help of Yen. Had he not flown all the way to come to her brother’s memorial? Was he not responsible for her assignment aboard the Revolution? He had even provided the Cair Ilmun for her. Until Keryn could reconnect with her own internal strength, she didn’t want to feel as though any of her accomplishments were the direct result of her reliance on others. She didn’t want to feel weak, no matter how much she hated herself for that thought.
Until she could find the strength of will she had somehow lost, she needed to distance herself from everyone she knew. Yen Xiao included.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The heavy scars of battle marred the surface of the Revolution as it flew toward the Farimas Space Station. The rest of the Fleet, all at least as heavily damaged as the Revolution, flew in tow, surrounding and escorting a captured Terran Destroyer. Disabled from the battle and its crew held in brigs throughout the Alliance ships, the Destroyer no longer posed the deadly threat it once had.
Though the Revolution was the least damaged of all the Cruisers, she proudly displayed her scored hull as they flew in formation. Plasma rockets had burned deep holes through the armored plating and the metal slugs of the rail guns had gouged chasms that exposed the interior of the ship to the void of space. Hundreds of Crewmen had died during the battle and entire sections of the ship were now uninhabitable, having been automatically sealed once the atmosphere within the ship had been breached. One of the holes in the hull exposed the ruins of the former bridge, now undistinguishable aside from the twisted and melted girders that had made the framework of the room. A fire within the bridge had killed both the Navigator and Communications Officers and resulted in a shift of command to an alternate post deeper within the Revolution. Though the original bridge was now destroyed, much like the head being severed from the beast, the Revolution still flew on with Captain Hodge safely in command.
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