by Abel, Regine
Where our psychic voids seemed to extend to the infinite, Hepon’s was confined in a more or less spherical, dark space common to people with no or limited psychic abilities. Typical to that same group, his soul—looking sickly and fading—lay bare, devoid of any shield to protect it. But what really struck me hard were the tumorous, diseased-looking nodes alongside the walls of his psychic void. Their placement and size matched the position of the bug limbs inserted along Hepon’s spine. Those tumors weren’t tangible masses that could be treated or removed via medical treatment, but merely a representation of a physical phenomenon that was affecting the psychic mind. Small tendrils were protruding from it, spreading their tentacles towards the boy’s soul.
“That bug is taking over his mind and will soon kill his soul,” I mind-spoke to Raven, not wanting to traumatize the child further or unnecessarily.
Exiting his psychic void, I turned around and retrieved a handheld scanner, running it over the child’s head and down his back. Hepon stared at me intently with pleading eyes. It broke my heart.
“That creature is sleeping right now,” I said gently to him, caressing his bald head. The odd texture of his skin felt and looked just like that of a dolphin, except for being albino-white. “It can’t hurt you while it sleeps. We’re going to see if we can take it off, okay?”
Hepon cast a fearful, sideways glance, as if attempting to catch a glimpse of the parasite stuck to his neck, then looked back up at me.
“O-okay,” he said, casting another scared glance sideways. When no pain came, his muscles lost some of their tension.
A quick peek at the scan results confirmed part of my suspicions. Feeling the heavy weight of my companions’ stares, I looked up at them.
“It’s going to take at least a couple of hours,” I said. “The parasite has attached itself to his nervous system. I’ve never seen this breed before, but it appears to be of the same family as the torelanx. Applying heat on the limbs should make them retract.”
“All right,” Chaos said, “keep us informed. We need to go have a talk with Doom and make new plans. Find out everything you can about that bug and how we keep it from fucking with our minds.”
I nodded. “Will do. I’m dropping your shield and giving it to Diane instead. The parasite shouldn’t wake up, but better safe than sorry.”
“Agreed,” Raven said. “I will return as soon as we have sorted all of this.”
He softly kissed me and gently brushed his knuckles against my cheek before leaving with the others. After shielding Diane, I caressed the boy’s head again and gave him a gentle smile.
“Let’s get rid of that mean old bug so that it never hurts you again.”
Chapter 12
Raven
“For a broken girl, your woman is badass,” Tabitha said with undisguised admiration, a rare expression from her these days. Legs crossed as she reclined on her chair in the mess hall, she dangled her foot back and forth.
I puffed my chest with pride. Liena had indeed come through for us, above and beyond all expectations. We had completely underestimated our enemies. When we’d come up with the plan of rushing them with surgical strikes, we had only expected the Kryptids and Janaurians to block our psychic abilities—which wouldn’t have prevented us from fighting. We never could have imagined they’d turn us into sitting ducks by taking over our minds as well.
“Liena was always a survivor. She had just forgotten it,” I said.
“She saved all of our lives today. Twice,” Tabitha said. “She is truly of the Vanguard.”
“Hear, hear,” the others replied.
My throat tightened with emotion at how my woman had earned her place within the Vanguard, first by revealing the phenomenal Shield ability, second by volunteering for a mission in spite of the mental trauma she potentially exposed herself to, and third by saving us all. Father would have died in that mission without her. No wonder all the scouting parties they had sent failed. No one could have survived.
“We’re coming,” Liena mind-spoke to me.
I didn’t respond with words but with a psychic caress. “She’s coming,” I told the others.
“Already?” Wrath said, straightening up on his own chair.
Chaos cast a quick glance at his watch. “That was less than an hour.”
“Good,” Sonia said. “Maybe we can get some answers and figure out our next steps. I’m not running back into that mess without a solid counter measure. Getting my mind fucked with, again, isn’t on my wishlist.”
“Agreed,” Steele said, a sentiment echoed by everyone around the table.
The mess door slid open on Liena, cradling Hepon in her arms. Bandages covered his nape and the upper-half of his spine, hiding the puncture wounds where the parasite had previously been attached. His small arms wrapped around her neck, he buried his face fearfully in her chest when his gaze fell upon us.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Liena said in an appeasing tone, kissing the top of his bald head. “They are all friends. They want to help you and your people be free of the Kryptids.”
Hepon looked up at her with adoration and my chest warmed, picturing the mother she would one day be to our child.
“Diane is analyzing samples taken from both Hepon and the parasite. I believe we can devise a drug that will force the bugs to detach from their hosts,” Liena said, answering the unspoken question in my eyes. “Hepon wouldn’t part from me,” she added with a shy smile.
“Looks like you’ve been replaced, scaly head,” Sonia said, tauntingly.
“Not a chance,” I said, caressing my mate’s cheek as she settled in the chair next to mine.
The boy eyed me suspiciously, pressing himself even more closely against my mate. I could see why he’d be wary of us considering we’d all tried to stun him with our blasters. Even if it had only been to render him unconscious, seeing someone shooting at you had to be traumatic.
“Will that disable the bug’s mind-fucking ability?” Tabitha asked with her usual tact.
“Tabitha!” Liena exclaimed with a frown at the f-bomb and cast a meaningful glance at the child. Tabitha made a semi-apologetic face. Liena shook her head before answering. “Sadly, no. From my preliminary examination, the bug is the actual psychic. Janaurians do not naturally possess any kind of extra-sensory perception. But the scans indicate this child—and probably all the others—have been genetically modified to act as broadcasters and, eventually, a permanent new vessel for the bugs.”
“As in a complete takeover?” Chaos asked.
“Yes.” She looked down at Hepon and caressed his head, avoiding touching the bandages on his nape. “Could you tell my friends what you told me?”
He peered up at my mate with trusting eyes and nodded. “Okay.” Turning towards us, he gave us a wary look, his hands gripping Liena’s shirt. “They came a few years ago and started giving skoldur to everyone to eat. It tastes really bad and makes our tummies hurt. But they punished us if we didn’t eat. It made many of the grown-ups very sick. Many went back to the earth because of it.”
The boy’s eyes misted, and he sniffled, leaning his head against my woman’s chest in search of comfort. She gave him a gentle squeeze and an encouraging smile.
“It lasted for many moons, many seasons. It changed us,” Hepon said, touching the few patches of black scales around his face. “But only the young. The Kryptids were angry it didn’t change the grown-ups. But the Scelks didn’t mind.”
“The Scelks?” I asked.
“The mind thief,” Hepon said, gingerly fingering his nape. “Since the last moon, the Kryptids have started killing our parents.”
“Where do the Scelks come from?” Wrath asked.
“They are from my home, Janaur, but they were not like this before. They were smaller and Papa said they were good for farms. They made holes in the ground.” Hepon shrugged. “I don’t really understand why holes are good. But now, the Scelks are bad.”
I repressed a smile. The childish
way he spoke Universal, added to a thick Janaurian accent, made his speech pattern sound like a sing-song.
“Did the Scelks attack you?” I asked.
Hepon shook his head. “The Kryptids made everyone go into the village Gathering Hall. They locked us in, and then they made the Scelks come through the windows. They moved too fast. And there was nowhere to run. They just came after us, the young. So many crawled on me. They were fighting each other, and I was trying to push them off but one got to my neck. It hurt so much.”
The boy’s lips quivered. Liena gently rocked him, kissing the top of his head again, and whispering soothing words.
A paternal instinct I’d always known I possessed surged to the forefront, seeking to shield the child from pain and harm. “No one will ever hurt you again,” I pledged. “We will all protect you.”
He peered at me, his large, yellow eyes brimming with tears and hope. “And the others, too?”
“We will do everything we can to save them, too,” I said.
“They are killing the grown-ups because the Scelks can’t use them like they use us,” Hepon said. “Please save my Mama and Papa.”
“We will try,” I said, giving him an encouraging smile.
Hepon gazed up at Liena. “I’m hungry,” he said in an apologetic voice.
“Of course, you would be,” Liena said, appearing somewhat mortified. “I should have asked you. Let me make you something.”
Hepon tightened his hold around my mate, a look of panic on his face when she appeared to want to leave him on the chair near me to go prepare his food. Liena smiled and carried him over to the meal preparation area and settled him on the counter.
“The psychic disruptor worked on the bug,” Tabitha pointed out. “Assuming Liena and Diane manage to prepare their drug to force the Scelks to release their hosts, we could go back in and cleanse the place if we use the same plan as last time but with disruptors attached to our suits. We could modify a couple of them to be portable without hindering us in combat.”
“Or we could wait for the fleet to arrive to do that with more back-up,” Steele argued.
“No,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. “By then, they will have massacred most of the population and used them to feed their Breeding Swamps.”
“Fair point,” Steele conceded. He rubbed his broad chin, pondering. “Between Doom’s units and ours, we could at least stop these execution squads.”
“Whatever we’re going to do, we need to move fast,” I said. “The Coalition will be here in eight days. If we are to save the population, we need to give the Coalition irrefutable proof that we can neutralize the Scelks without harming the locals.”
“Any chance your drug could not only make the Scelks fall off but also poison them without harming the rest of the population?” Sonia asked Liena, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder.
Liena looked at her, absent-mindedly extending a leafy green to Hepon. He snagged it and greedily shoved it into his mouth.
“I’m not sure. We’re not really equipped with everything I would need to synthesize any kind of advanced poison. Back on Khepri, I’d say yes without hesitation, but here…” Liena said with an apologetic look. “However, I’m not sure we want to totally eradicate them. It could harm their ecosystem if they are completely removed.”
“Can’t you target the modified Scelks specifically?” I asked.
“I would need a non-modified one to compare to and find a unique trait that could be targeted,” Liena said.
“True,” I said frowning. “Then how do we proceed? We go back with the disruptors and squash as many as we can underfoot?”
“That’d be fun,” Wrath said. “I owe those fuckers for messing with my head.”
“Hey! Watch your language,” Liena said, casting another glance at Hepon.
We all chuckled.
“Apologies,” Wrath said, scrunching his face.
“Yes,” Chaos said, getting us back on track. “According to Doom, there is a small incoming fleet. They should reach us in a day or two. We have no idea what they are packing. Let’s clean up as much as we can before they get here. Doom offered to spare us his entire fleet, except for his vessel that will continue to patrol.”
“But what if the disruptors don’t work,” I challenged.
“That’s why you, Steele, and Wrath will go out first with disruptors,” Chaos replied. “As I’ve already used one of my two Shells, I’d rather avoid having to use my last one too soon. If the disruptors work, the rest of us, including Doom’s units, will join the battle. If they fail, Tyonna will portal you back in to avoid the sort of pathetic scramble we had this morning.”
With all of us in agreement, I accompanied Liena back to the lab, carrying the large bowl of sliced fruits, raw vegetables, and with a mix of nuts that she’d prepared for Hepon. The boy, still cradled in her arms, reached for the food, shoving it into his mouth before chewing with enthusiasm. Although they occasionally ate raw fish, the Janaurians were mainly vegetarian.
We found Diane finalizing her analyses, the Scelk still unconscious under the dome.
“This won’t be safe overnight,” I said, frowning at the creature.
“Right,” Liena said, plopping Hepon on a bench near the counter. “We will put it in a containment box with a disruptor right next to it. Now, off you go, science awaits,” she said, leaning against me.
I wrapped my arms around her and captured her lips in a tender kiss. Despite my burning urge to drag her back to our room and lose myself in her, I reluctantly let go.
“See you soon,” I said before walking out.
* * *
Time flew as we finalized our plans of attack, checking in frequently with Liena and Diane in the lab. The Scelk still being alive freaked me out far more than I wanted to admit. The short period during which it had held me in its thrall had felt like an eternity. To think Liena had to endure such torture for months at the hands of her so-called mentor…
Worse still, in order to pursue her tests, Liena had to awaken the damn thing. With her shield keeping her and Diane safe, Wrath and I had the great ‘pleasure’ of serving as guinea pigs when my mate disabled the disruptor. At least we were able to confirm that, when active, the device effectively blocked the Scelk’s psychic abilities and that, without a Janaurian host, their attack range was significantly reduced to only a few feet instead of extending over the entire ship while he’d been attached to Hepon.
It took the women the remainder of the day and far into the evening to come up with a short-term solution. The clever females had dug up medical studies on the Janaurians. The mostly vegetarian species displayed drunken-like behavior whenever they consumed too much sugar or certain types of grains. It caused their blood to become acidic. Although it didn’t harm them over short periods of time, it appeared to be intolerable for the Scelks.
The fastest, but more painful way to massively affect the population, would be to bombard them with nitrogen to reduce the oxygen in the air. Asphyxiation would quickly increase the acidity of their blood, shedding their hosts. But the risk of casualties before we restored the oxygen levels to normal were too high. Instead, the women had prepared a sugar solution we would inject the children with, using dart guns. If it worked as intended, within less than ten minutes, the Scelks would be forced to leave. Judging by the state of the one in the containment box, we wouldn’t even need a poison to kill them off. According to Liena, that bug had become dependent on its host from whom it received all of its sustenance and was slowly dying without him. She doubted it would make it through the night.
While she understood the necessity of moving forward with our plan, it disturbed Liena to know we’d be obliterating one sentient species to save not just the Janaurians but the rest of the galaxy from the psychic parasites. I could relate to that sentiment. But a single glimpse into that creature’s psychic mind had convinced me to stay the course. Despite its intelligence, it was single-minded in its desire to subdue and entra
p. I doubted that, without a host, it would ever grow beyond such primitive impulses. But had he completely taken over Hepon and killed his soul, the Scelk might have begun showing more advanced thoughts, maybe even sentiments such as compassion once in full control of his host’s brain and higher functions.
Not something I ever wanted to find out.
After securing the lab, we headed to bed with our psychic disruptor on our nightstands. Father’s units would work through part of the night replicating Liena’s sugar solution and loading up on darts. To my dismay, I walked into our room to find Hepon sitting in the middle of our bed next to my mate. Liena gave me an apologetic smile and gestured for me to join them. The boy eyed me suspiciously but didn’t balk otherwise.
I lay down on the left side of the bed while the young Janaurian, lying between us, cuddled up against the side of my woman, his head on her shoulder. I’d never thought I’d feel jealous of a child, but there it was.
“Consider it practice,” Liena mind-spoke to me.
At long last, I understood my father’s many frustrated looks the countless times I’d invaded my parents’ bedroom growing up. And I hadn’t suffered from any type of night fears. But that look on Father’s face made it worthwhile.
Karma is a bitch.
And yet, I fell asleep with a smile at the thought of getting cock-blocked by a mini-me in the future.
* * *
Morning came much too soon. I didn’t fear battle but facing the zombie kids and then being caught in a mind trap had rattled me. Worse still, that our entire crew had fallen to a single Scelk freaked me out. Legion had been right to insist we figure out what the Kryptids were up to. I didn’t doubt for a minute that General Khutu had some of the Scelks in his possession and was probably trying to subject other species to their control—especially those with known ESP abilities.