The fierce warrior that was created to destroy all resistance against the Shadow Empire kneels
down on the dirty ground just because I said so.
I turn to the alien. “He’s mine,” I say. “So is Damian. I win.”
“Don’t be so sure, little human girl. I can switch Kroll back. And Damian has no imprinted
loyalty to you anymore.”
“Who needs loyalty when you can have love? He’ll never come to you. We are lovers now.
How could you compete with that? Game over.”
The alien raises his hand at me, the one that holds the receptor. I meet his energy blast with mine
and quickly disarm it. Then I send a small beam at the top of his head and get the mask and hood off
his face.
I am not prepared for what I see. I lower the receptor and stare at the alien that stands before me
shaking violently. Against all logic, that creature is not male. I am looking at a female alien and a
beautiful one at that.
The shock doesn’t wear off even after I walk to her and touch her long silver hair. I have never
seen a female alien before and she’s not at all what I would have expected. She looks like the
beautiful elves in picture books and movies from the past. Her ears are a little pointy and her
eyebrows stretch in a beautiful curve above her eyes like rainbows. Her lips tremble in what I feel is shame. She does not like to be looked upon. She can’t stand my curiosity.
“I’m afraid you will have to be my prisoner,” I say. “There’s so much you have to tell me. Like
why you don’t breed your own little freaks. You probably can’t, can you?”
But I am the one who has underestimated her powers now. As soon as I try to get hold of her
hand, a violet beam shoots down from the ceiling and encircles her. When I try to get my hand inside
the beam, I feel a sharp stinging pain as if I’d been electrocuted.
The beam gets thicker and the female alien gets thinner. Her consistency changes till she’s
almost transparent. The beam starts pulling her upward.
“It’s you and me now, Freya,” she says, “and the fate of this world lies between us. I am an
Empress and you are a girl. I will win. But you will put up a good little fight.”
“Run! It’s all you have left,” I command as she vanishes into thin air.
*
I RACE DOWN THE STAIRS and out of the HQ building. I spot Kroll a few feet away and run
to him.
“The legion?” I say.
“On their way,” he replies.
“Help me get the children out.”
I notice that his gaze is fixed somewhere behind me. I turn and I see a group of Sliman walking
in our direction.
“The guards,” I say.
“I will take care of them,” Kroll says. “You get your children.”
I run to the first dorm but stop before I blow the door open with the receptor. The sounds behind
me are too disturbing for me not to want to look. I do so and freeze in place.
Kroll fights the Sliman guards with his bare hands. He has had enough time to turn his thick skin
on and it works like an armor. It’s so effective and advanced that the pulse blasts cannot penetrate it.
Kroll grabs Sliman after Sliman and tears them apart limb by limb. His fury is out of control and I
feel like I’m going to faint.
I have unleashed a monster upon the world. A monster that knows no allegiance besides the one
I have forced upon him. But will it last? What if there’s some other code in him I don’t know about?
What will I do if he turns against me? How will I protect the children from this killing machine?
“Kroll!” I yell.
He pauses instantly and looks to me for guidance.
“Kill them in a more elegant way,” I say. “I don’t want the children seeing this type of carnage.”
He nods and takes out his pulse gun. I notice that he uses low energy to knock the guards out
rather than to kill them. Maybe I judged him too harshly. The children look at me in disbelief. “It’s
okay,” I say. “You’re safe now. You will come with me. You will be free.”
I get them out of the dorm and move to the next one.
“Freya!” I hear Kroll calling me. I get out of the dorm and tell the children to form a line. What I
see, gets my heart racing. A group of aliens has walked into the plantation carrying sensory receptors.
They are followed by a new horde of Sliman.
“This isn’t good,” I whisper. I turn to Kroll. “Tell Finn and the Dark Legion that they have to
hurry,” I yell. “We need them here!”
I hastily get the children to return to the dorms. I know that only a fraction of the Dark Legion
could be called to Plantation-8 without raising suspicions. Most of them are still scattered at
whatever post they were assigned to and only five-hundred will be here today. Afterward, if there is
an afterward, I will pull them all out of the plantations and start my own community in a different
district far away from the plantation network.
“Let’s hope they will be enough,” I say and go out to face the aliens. I count twelve receptors but
there are probably more. I don’t know how strong each alien is individually but all of them combined
will be strong enough to bring me down.
I opt for the element of surprise. Instead of waiting for them to make a move, I attack them at full
strength. I use the highest energy blasts I can produce and create a circular field that hits the front row of the aliens bringing two of them to their knees. The second row steps forward and heals the two
weakened aliens. These guys are good.
The aliens of the third row attack me simultaneously. Five receptors against one. I feel the
weight of the energy field they create on my shoulders and legs. It feels like I have to carry a heavy rock strapped around my neck. But I’ve had worse. I can persevere as long as I stay focused.
It doesn’t take long before more receptors are turned against me. The pain blinds me and I can’t
see how many I have to fight against anymore.
I would be lost if not for Kroll. He jumps in front of me and takes the full blast of the energy
field on his chest. Any other creature would have disintegrated on the spot.
He falls to his knees. I immediately fire at the aliens to protect him. His intervention has given
me a very brief break, enough to renew my energy momentarily.
The pack of Sliman that accompany the aliens see their chance to attack Kroll now that he’s
down. I cannot help him. I don’t think I will have the time to build up a shield around us both if I drop my personal energy field. The aliens will strike me down before I even have a chance to blink.
I do the only thing I can. I get in front of him hoping it will give the Sliman some pause. I have to
believe I am still important to the alien Empress and she doesn’t want to do away with me just yet.
My assumption proves to be correct but my victory doesn’t last long. The Sliman go around me
and soon I feel an empty space where Kroll used to be. They have dragged him away and although I
can’t see what’s going on behind me, I have a pretty good idea. They are beating him until he
succumbs. Then they will take him away as a gift to their mistress who will reprogram him.
But now I have my own problems to worry about. The aliens are advancing and there’s nothing I
can do to stop them. My power lessens more and more. As strong as I am with the receptor, it will
soon be impossible for me to keep my energy field up.
My knees start to tremble. I feel the familiar pains that shoot across my limbs and spine every
time I overexert myself with the receptor when two hands pick me up. Kroll has broken free and has
come to my rescue. He must be immortal. I maintain the shield as he carries me away.
“We can’t leave the dorms,” I say. “The children are my priority.”
His support gives me some strength and I keep fighting, holding the aliens at bay. I lose a little
ground every time, but my determination remains.
“There,” Kroll says pointing into the distance. “The Legion comes.”
He puts me down gently and takes his pulse gun out. He shoots an alien on the leg. Immediately,
two aliens break from the collective energy field and target Kroll.
My burden lessens but Kroll is exposed. I don’t know if he will survive this second assault for
long.
The Dark Legion approach at full trot. I can see them clearly now. My heart soars with hope
when I spot Damian and Finn among the dark warriors. The aliens drop their energy field and form a
circle to protect their backs. They are shooting to kill now.
The Dark Legion fall upon them like rabid hyenas. They are blasted backward again and again
but they keep coming back. Finn comes to my side.
“How are you feeling?” he says.
“Had a little too much sun today,” I say. “I’m fine. Check on Kroll.”
“What about the children?” he says.
“They’re okay. Go see about Kroll. He has to survive the day.”
Finn hurries to Kroll while I try to refocus. I close my eyes and call to the receptor to infuse
some white energy into me. The jolt comes and flows through my veins like a magic potion. I open my
eyes and stretch my arms. I swing the receptor and create a magnetic field of enormous force. I throw
it at the circle of aliens and trap them inside. They can barely move now. Their plans for the day have gone terribly wrong.
“Stop, you’ll hurt yourselves,” I order the Dark Legion who are still trying to penetrate the field
and get their hands on the aliens.
Four aliens are dead. At least twenty of my warriors have also perished on the field of battle. I
scan the area quickly and spot Damian. I feel an overwhelming sense of relief.
“Kroll is alive,” Finn says. “He’s hurt but I think you can bring him back.”
“Good,” I say but then the energy inside me goes cold. “Something’s wrong, Finn.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It just seems too easy. The way I was able to control them.”
“They didn’t know about the Dark Legion,” Finn says. “They weren’t prepared for them.”
“No, they know.”
“How?”
“I told them.”
Damian steps up to us. I study his face for a moment but there’s nothing there for me to see. He is
as unmoved as always.
“Is it over?” he says.
“I don’t think so. Where’s Joshua and the others?”
“They are waiting for our signal,” Damian says. “They will come to help with the children when
the plantation has been cleared and secured.”
It is a dark warrior that notices it first. A wave of drones approaching from the east, another
from the west.
“Doombirds,” he yells.
“What does he mean?” I say.
Kroll comes to me dragging his left leg. His armor has protected his body but his legs and arms
are badly burned.
“They are bomber drones,” he says. “They’ll rain down liquid explosives. They are coming to
destroy the plantation as promised. And us.”
Maybe the Empress has decided she’d rather have me dead than running free after all. Maybe
it’s not worth her effort trying to preserve me. Not now that I have the precious Dark Legion on my
side. The doombirds are just specks on the horizon moving slowly our way but they will be here
within minutes.
“I’m out of moves,” I say.
Finn grabs me by the shoulders. “No,” he says, “you can’t talk like that. Listen to me, Freya. You
have great instincts. You have proven it again and again. Trust your senses. They will tell you what to do.”
I look to Damian for answers.
“What he said,” Damian says. “Instincts and all.”
I can’t avoid the thought in my head. Boys are useless sometimes.
It comes to me. “I have to use their energy to create a super blast that will bring down the
doombirds,” I say.
“How will you do that?” Finn says.
“I need a second receptor.”
Damian reads my mind. He gets to the trapped aliens with three long strides. As I release the
field on one side, he reaches inside and grabs a receptor from a stunned alien. He brings the receptor to me. I take it in my left hand. I’d like to explore its potential but there’s no time for that. I’ll have to trust my instinct as Finn put it.
With a thrust of the receptor in my right hand, I lift the magnetic field off the aliens while I use
the second receptor to create a chain of energy beams that activate all the receptor devices in their
hands.
With the right receptor I control the aliens and with the left one I keep their receptors activated
and their beams connected. No matter how hard they try to release themselves, my force field
overpowers them completely.
When the first drones come within reach of my force field, I turn all the receptors against them.
The Dark Legion form a circle around me to protect me from potential firing from the drones. One by
one I blow up the first doombirds, turning them into ashes and flames.
They keep coming like there’s no end to them from two different directions. I have to divide the
energy swirls to keep up. I work as fast as I can directing my rage at the doombirds but eventually the inevitable happens. One of the last drones escapes and turns the opposite way. I can’t redirect the
energy field fast enough to catch up with it so I let it go. I blow up the last ones and then drop the energy field altogether. I take a moment to rest and recoup my strength. The aliens see their chance to escape and start running away from us with bizarre up-and-down strides.
“Should we get them?” Damian says.
“No, we should free the children,” I say.
“How on earth did you do that?” Finn says.
“I honestly have no idea. I followed my instinct like you said.”
“You’ll have to listen to me more often,” he says jokingly.
We start to unlock doors and get the children safely out of the dorms. I have the Sliman organize
groups of fifty children and lead them to the vast training area behind the main buildings.
Kroll comes to me holding a big vial.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Omicron 5,” he says. “I have the formula and samples. For your Sliman friends that need it.”
I smile. “You’ve done good,” I say.
When the first explosion happens, we don’t quite understand.
Finn looks at me perplexed. “What was that?” he says.
“An explosion,” Kroll says. “There.”
We look to the west and see a small cloud of debris rise up a few miles away. Almost
immediately, a second explosion follows.
“It must be the doombird that escaped,” Finn says.
“What are they bombing?” Damian says.
Finn goes pale as he looks at me.
“No,” I say shaking my head. “You’re wrong. It can’t be.”
Finn
takes out his touchpad. “Gritu,” he yells into it. “Are you there?”
There’s no response.
“Try Theo,” I say.
Finn looks at me with eyes filled with fear and pain.
“Do it, Finn!” I say desperately.
Finn punches Theo’s number on the keys. “Theo,” he says. “Are you receiving this?”
After a few seconds that feel like an eternity, Theo responds. “I’m here,” he says.
My relief at hearing his voice weakens me more than any alien field. I hug Finn and hold on to
him while he talks to Theo. “Did you hear the explosion? Do you know where it happened?”
It takes a long time for Theo to reply. “We split up,” he says. “I think they may have got hit.”
“They? Who’s they?” I scream into the touchpad.
The connection is lost before Theo answers.
“Freya, look,” Damian says.
The front of the HQ building has turned into a huge screen showing footage from a plantation. It
could be 6 or 7, I’m not sure. Everything seems normal, children practicing under the watch of their
trainers and guards, until a doombird becomes visible above them as the camera turns upward.
A gentle rain of small round bubbles falls from the doombird. We all watch in horror as the
bubbles quietly descend and explode seconds before touching the ground.
18
The faces of the children. The terror in their eyes. Burned flesh. Torn limbs. The screams. Was
this all really just to send me a message?
The Shadow Empress is telling me she will win because she’s ruthless. There’s nothing she
won’t do. While I’m a weak human with a conscience and an aching desire for happiness.
Happiness is not an objective. Not anymore. But I can live with that if I get to bring her and her
evil empire down. Fulfillment. Her word.
We have to lead two-thousand terrified children to safety. Kroll has instructed the warriors of
the Dark Legion to abandon their positions and meet us at the appointed post. We are leaving the
district in search of a safer life for humans and Sliman alike.
But nothing feels right. Nothing ever will. Finn has left with a group of Sliman to look for Theo
and the others. My heart refuses to believe that any of our friends have been hurt. I’ve seen enough
death today to last me a lifetime.
Have I been arrogant? Thinking I could outsmart an enemy a thousand times more powerful and
[scifan] plantation - books one to three Page 44