Fear finally gripped Yen’s heart. Lifting the monument had been too much for his body to withstand. Now, having pushed his power beyond its limit, he no longer had control. Unwittingly, he had ordered a pair of Terrans to take their own life and, more importantly, they had so willingly obeyed. The thought sickened Yen as it frightened him. If he could so dispassionately order the deaths of the Terran soldiers, what else was he capable of?
Standing weakly, Yen stumbled down the hall. Though Doctor Solomon’s signal was still clearly ahead of him, Yen took a moment to search the rest of the hall. To his amazement, he realized that there was no one else around. No more Terrans waiting in ambush. Finally, it would truly be a private conversation between Yen and the good doctor.
Drawing up short of the door, Yen reached out and pressed the button that should have opened the door. He didn’t expect it to work. He expected Doctor Solomon to have locked himself inside, behind walls of protection. Yet, to his surprise, the door slid quietly open.
In stark contrast to the hallway, the interior of the laboratory was well lit. The bright light only aggravated Yen’s headache, making him squint to make out the details of the room. Rows of tables covered with beakers and vials full of unidentifiable fluids filled the center of the room. View screens, some showing the exterior of the building while many more showed samples of specimens, lined the walls around the room. A single, massive monitor covered the entire far wall, though it stood black and silent.
Standing in the center of the room, an older Terran pulled his white lab coat tighter around his thin frame. Thinning white hair covered his head, though his face carried few of the age lines Yen would have expected from a man of his age; another example of the extents of genetic and biological research that were being conducted within this facility. Yen had no doubt that Doctor Solomon had experimented on himself, granting himself extended youth and virility.
“Yen Xiao,” the man said, his voice strong despite his age. “I have been waiting for you.”
The doctor stood supremely confident, though Yen could still sense the man’s deep fear. Though Yen had yet to say a word, a single thought dominated Solomon’s mind: he knew that he was going to die today.
“Doctor Solomon. We have much to discuss, you and I.”
Solomon shook his head and frowned. “No, we really don’t.”
Yen was taken aback by the doctor’s audacity. He couldn’t help but feel as though he was being led into a trap. But every time he tried to focus on that train of thought, his headache flared anew and drove all thoughts from his head.
Taking advantage of Yen’s hesitation, Doctor Solomon continued. “You were ordered to take me in alive, but you and I both know that you won’t do that. You want me dead, so I don’t see that we really have much to discuss at all. Kill me, and let’s get it done with.”
“That’s not the way this works,” Yen replied, infuriated as the doctor raised his arms in order to expose himself to attack. “You die when and how I say you die! After all you’ve done, there is no way in hell that I’m going to make this quick and painless.”
“Come on and do it already,” Solomon mocked. “You know that if you let me live or, by some miracle I escape, I’ll never stop my research. All the men you’ve lost along the way fighting against the Terrans will be multiplied tenfold if I survive. I will find every biological weapon at my disposal and unleash them on every Alliance planet. I will sit back and laugh as you all die horrible, plague-ridden deaths.”
“Do you have a death wish, old man?” Yen replied, as much confused as he was angry. Whether Solomon had come to terms with his God, he was now fully prepared to die.
“I can’t abide by cowardice,” Solomon said with a grimace. “Either you kill me, or get out of my lab.” Lowering his hands, the doctor leaned forward as though examining Yen for the first time. “You know, I think I was mistaken. You don’t have the guts to kill me. Go ahead. Get out! Come back when you have the balls to do what needs to be done!”
Furiously, Yen sprinted across the room, grabbing Solomon by the front of his jacket. His head spun as the psychic power yearned to be unleashed. It reached out hungrily, nipping playfully at Solomon’s hair and clothes. Try as he might, Yen found himself unable to reel in the probing tendrils. He felt as though his brain were swelling, soon to split his skull apart and spill onto the floor.
“Shut up, you bastard!” Yen growled.
“And if I don’t,” Solomon whispered, inches from his face. He seemed oblivious to the biting tendrils around him. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll tear you limb from limb.” Again, Yen knew that the words weren’t his, but the power bubbled dangerously close to the surface, consuming him from within.
“Then do it already and quit wasting both our time.”
Yen felt his own energy drain from his body as the tendrils grew thicker and sharp fangs protruded from each of their ends. Serpentine, the tendrils whipped back and forth, ready to strike.
“Let him go, Yen,” a familiar voice ordered from the doorway behind where Yen stood holding the doctor.
The tendrils turned and looked behind him, saving Yen the trouble of turning around. From the eyes of the tendrils, Yen could see Buren entering the room, the rest of his team in tow.
“This isn’t your affair, Buren,” Yen snarled in response.
“This is my business,” the Uligart quickly retorted. “I know what your orders were. They were to bring Doctor Solomon back alive. And if you can’t complete your mission, then you need to walk away before someone gets hurt.”
Buren’s thinly veiled threat did not go unnoticed by either Yen or Solomon.
“Don’t listen to him, Yen,” Solomon whispered. “Do what you want to. Kill me!”
“Shut up,” Yen muttered to the doctor. As Buren’s team spread out into the room, Yen felt his attention drawn in too many directions at once. Each tendril sent back the image of what it saw, unfiltered, directly into Yen’s mind. He saw a dozen different images of the room like a kaleidoscope spinning in his vision. The nausea brewed once again in his stomach as he felt his control slipping away.
“Put down the doctor,” Buren ordered.
“Don’t listen to him,” the doctor prodded. “You’re in control here, not him.”
“Both of you, shut up!” Yen said a little sterner. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the confusion that festered in his mind.
“Kill me, you gutless coward,” Solomon hissed.
Yen bared his teeth as the power surged in his body. The power was slipping quickly out of his grasp and there was little he could do to stop it.
“Drop him,” Buren threatened, “or I’ll drop you!”
Yen’s head felt ready to explode, the pressure growing so great that Yen struggled to maintain consciousness. His organs felt like they were being turned inside out as the psychic energy filled every cell of his body. The power was bubbling quickly to the surface and there was nothing Yen could do to stop it.
“Do it now!” Solomon yelled in Yen’s face. “Kill me!”
“I will kill you, Yen!”
Throwing his head back, Yen screamed as the psychic power erupted from his body. Waves of blue, pulsing energy rolled from him, filling the room. Doctor Solomon threw up his hand defensively, but they did little to protect him. The waves licked the Terran’s body like hungry fire, feeding off a new fuel. The flesh on Solomon’s arms and legs blistered and cooked, charring before flaking away in long strips. The softer flesh of his eyes, lips, and tongue boiled and melted under the assault, running in rivulets down his face. Choking on his own gore, the doctor collapsed to the ground as his body continued to cook away.
The expanding wave tossed tables haphazardly throughout the room, pushing them far away from Yen, who stood at the epicenter of the explosion. Hissing filled the air as bubbling chemicals mixed and scored long streaks in the stone floor. The Alliance soldiers caught in the wave were thrown against the wall, t
heir bodies crushed from the force of the blast. Broken and bloodied, they fell unmoving to the floor.
Buren squeezed the trigger on his rifle as the wave rolled toward him. The round was caught by the psychic power before it could leave the barrel. Instead of firing toward Yen, the bullet exploded in the chamber, causing a chain reaction that ignited the other bullets in the magazine. The rifle exploded in Buren’s face, shredding the Uligart’s face with jagged strips of metal. Screaming in pain, Buren was thrown into the corner, where he clawed at his ruined flesh. A reptilian tendril of blue flame emerged from Yen’s body and rushed across the floor toward the howling Uligart, consuming his body. Buren shook uncontrollably as he tried to break free of the scorching energy. Like the doctor before him, Buren’s flesh was cooked away and his dark blood boiled and evaporated into the air.
As suddenly as it began, the serpentine tendrils and rolling flames roared back into Yen’s body, leaving the laboratory quiet and dark. Coughing in pain and feeling both emotionally and physically drained, Yen staggered in the now eerily quiet room. Sparks fell from the shattered lights above his head, providing the only meager lighting in the otherwise dark room. No furniture or bodies, aside from that of Doctor Solomon, rested anywhere near Yen’s standing form, which stood on the only patch of unburned ground in the entire laboratory.
Sighing, Yen felt the psychic power within him dwindling, as though the core of its might was spent. It left him feeling hollow, as he tried his best to regain control over the power that remained. Opening his watering eyes, Yen looked around him at the devastation he had caused. Barely discernable Alliance bodies were cast, forgotten, into the corners of the room, their bodies intermixed with twisted furniture and broken glass. All the monitors around the room were shattered, save the massive wall-sized monitor that had been protected by a thick screen.
Exhausted, Yen turned toward the exit of the room. He didn’t know how he would explain what happened to either his remaining teammates or the High Council. At the moment, however, he couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the horror of what he had just done. He was only vaguely conscious of Alliance soldiers at the doorway.
Yen was startled as bright blue light suddenly illuminated the room. Turning slowly, he faced the large monitor on the wall, which had since turned itself on. Entranced, he took a step closer as an image began to emerge. Slowly, the screen came into focus and Yen found himself staring at a familiar face.
From the monitor, the larger-than-life image of Doctor Solomon smiled back.
EPILOGUE
“My name is Doctor David Solomon. If you are watching this video, it means that I am already dead. Five years ago, I inherited the Terran Mutation Project which was created nearly one hundred years ago as a safeguard against invasion by the Interstellar Alliance. However, in all that time, the Alliance and the Empire have both stoically remained fastidious about the terms of the Taisa Accord. Both sides remained loyal to the non-invasion agreement and obeyed a no-fly zone through the approved Demilitarized Zone.
“Though both sides strictly obeyed the precepts of the Accord publicly, our spies sent back information to the Lords’ Senate that the Alliance planned military operations against Terran outposts. I was approached, following this discovery, to turn the Terran Mutation Project from a defensive to offensive weapon. My results were spectacular! My shining accomplishment with the Project came with the modification of the Seque, a domicile load-bearing creature native to Alliance occupied space.
“My work with the Seque was highly successful. My experiment cost thousands of Alliance citizens their lives. For my part, I was lavished with praise by the Lords’ Senate. It was truly the highlight of my career. At least it was, until a chance encounter with an Oterian smuggler flying through the Demilitarized Zone. After being taken captive, the Oterian revealed his cargo, a strange substance that was later designated as Deplitoxide. The disenfranchised smuggler agreed to provide more of the chemical to us, which we weaponized for rocket attacks against Alliance ships. Armed with the new weapons, I ordered the fleet into Alliance space.
“Initial tests were very promising, until the small fleet was destroyed by an Alliance counterattack. The rest, as they say, is history.
“It would have been the end of my story, except that I wasn’t done with my research. Deplitoxide had too many uses outside of ship-to-ship engagements to be content with our results. The chemical’s ability to transmute heat and energy had far reaching implications, many of which the universe will experience now that I’m dead.
“The Lords’ Senate had approved one last bit of research, knowing that a strike by the Alliance was highly probably after we invaded their space. The research was as intriguing as it was revealing. The hypothesis of our research was simple: if the Deplitoxide had the ability to transform the engine fuel of ships into a black tar, then the effects on a burning sun would be catastrophic.
“To that end, the Terran Empire pre-positioned canisters of Deplitoxide in orbit around forty-three different suns in thirty-two galaxies. As this message is playing, signals are being sent to these canisters. If we can’t defeat the Alliance by force, then we’ll simply have to kill them where they live.
“While I know I will always be remembered for this brazen scientific gambit, I can only hope my research is continued by those who would not live under the yoke of Alliance domination. I was known in life; let me be immortalized in death.”
Brink of Distinction Series:
Burden of Sisyphus
Fall of Icarus
Purge of Prometheus
To contact Jon Messenger, or to be placed on a mailing list to receive updates about new releases and read exclusive series content, click the “Contact Us” tab on his website: http://www.brinkofdistinction.com
Fall of Icarus Page 39