Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5)

by Jacob Gowans

  There hadn’t been many boys to fall for in the village where she grew up. Some she knew so well they were more like brothers. Many had no ambition, a few had far too much. Her discovery by Commander Byron due to an incident during a gymnastics competition had been a welcome blessing. She had never once missed her village.

  Over the course of two years as a member of Psion Beta, Kawai had developed strong feelings for three people: Martin Trector, Sammy Berhane, and Li Cheng Zheng. Martin died in Rio, Sammy couldn’t tell one female from another unless her name was Jeffie, and Li …

  Kawai didn’t want to think about him anymore, but he was all she could think about.

  “Kawai, where are you?” Nikotai, Cow Team’s leader, shouted.

  “Squad Bravo is down,” Kawai reported back. It took every last bit of self-control she had not to cry. The haze and smoke was so thick from the rockets, she couldn’t see. “Rockets. I—I tried to blast them, but I could only save myself.”

  The blockade her team had been charged with destroying had only been partially demolished from the car she’d driven into it. Most of the southern half had crumbled, but the explosives hadn’t all discharged, leaving too much of the blockade intact. The Aegis and other agents had made them pay for the damage with drone and rocket fire.

  “We have to get behind those rocket towers,” Nikotai pressed. “I need you to provide cover.”

  Two rows of cement crowd barriers stood between the nearest rocket towers forty meters away. Six drone guns had been mounted on the barriers before Cow Team’s car had collided into the blockade. The drones acted as sentinels that riddled holes in anything that looked dangerous or moved too fast on the western side of the blockade. So far Cow Team had taken out four of them, but a pair still remained.

  “Can you make your way back to my location in two minutes?”

  Kawai reached Nikotai in ninety seconds. Of his original fourteen team members, eight remained. Nikotai pointed north. “They’re coming. I don’t know how many, but the marchers are coming. And if we can’t take out this blockade, they’re going to get cut down. And that’s on us.”

  Dave Hudec, second in command of Cow Team, nodded.

  “Kawai, you need to get us through using your shields. All seven of us are going behind you. Can you do that?”

  “I can try,” she said meekly.

  “I can’t count on a try. Can you do it?”

  “I can do it.”

  Nikotai seemed satisfied with her answer. “Dave has grenades. So do Ilima and Dustin. I’ve got plenty of ammo. We just need to get into position to take out the towers and drones.”

  Kawai led the team to new cover behind two cars stacked one on top of the other, the top car upside down. Both were smoking hulls. The rounds of the two remaining drone guns clanked off their frames like hail on a window during a storm. Nikotai had to shout to be heard over the noise. “Keep an eye on that rocket tower, Kawai! And there’s a second tower behind him, two Aegis with rifles.”

  “What now?” Hudec yelled to Nikotai.

  “Take Kawai, Matthews, and Todd. Knock out those drones. We’ll stay here and draw the attention of the rocket tower.”

  The task Nikotai had given Hudec was not an easy one. One drone was twenty meters to the right, the other a little farther to the left. Kawai could not easily shield everything and everyone. She needed another Psion.

  I need Li.

  “We’ll take the closest one first,” Dave Hudec said.

  Shielding for Matthews and Todd was easier than Hudec. He was a bear of a man, while Ilima Todd and Dustin Matthews were both much shorter than Kawai. But Hudec had more combat experience from his days with his brother, Duncan, in the Elite Black Ops. Todd and Matthews were volunteers—survivors of the bio-bomb attack on Glasgow—and it amazed Kawai they had managed to avoid catching a bullet this long.

  Nikotai’s superb aim prevented the Aegis in the rocket tower from getting off another round of missiles, but both drones and the rifles took aim at Hudec’s group.

  “Get us to that barrier!” Hudec ordered, pointing to a molten cement barrier just tall enough for them to crouch behind.

  The drone gun was only seven or eight meters away. Kawai concentrated on shielding the group from it as they ran across the park. Ilima tripped and hit the pavement. The drone gun picked up on her movement and ripped into her.

  “Get away from her!” Hudec roared. Seconds later, one of the drone’s rounds caught the grenade on Ilima’s person and detonated it. The rest of the group ran for cover. “Give me your grenade, Matthews!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need it.”

  “What? You think I’m gonna die?”

  “Just give it to him,” Kawai said. “We’re not going to let you die.”

  Dustin Matthews handed it over. Hudec pulled the pin and waited a beat before tossing the grenade into the blockade. Two seconds later, the boom came and the drone stopped firing.

  “Let’s go.”

  Other than passing what was left of Ilima Todd and marking her GPS location, the crossing to the second drone was uneventful. The Aegis fired another rocket at Nikotai’s group, obliterating much of what remained of the damaged vehicles, but Nikotai made the Aegis pay for it with his life. Now he and his two companions hunkered down behind a heap of park benches.

  “In position to take out the second drone,” Hudec said.

  “Rocket tower is down,” Nikotai said. “Do it.”

  Hudec pulled the pin, waited, and threw, but the drone gun shot the grenade midair where it detonated harmlessly. Kawai had her shields up, but somehow Matthews wasn’t covered. Bullets or shrapnel or both hit him in the eye, throat, and chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Dave Hudec cursed.

  “I shielded—I thought you were—” Kawai tried to explain to Dustin, but his glossy eyes and blood-speckled face left her frozen.

  “Todd and Matthews are down,” Hudec reported. “What are our orders?”

  Another rocket erupted from the tower—the same tower Nikotai had reported as clear. It flew toward Kawai and Hudec.

  “Incoming bogey!” Nikotai shouted.

  Kawai fired concentrated blasts at it while more shots rang out across the park. The rocket exploded next to the drone gun, disabling it. Kawai scanned the area for signs of more incoming fire. “Are we clear?” she asked.

  No one answered.

  Kawai chanced a glance behind her but saw no one. “Hudec?”

  Crackling sounds came from her com. Nikotai’s voice. She couldn’t make out the words. Kawai dropped down and almost sat on Hudec. Most of the top of his head was gone and a pool of blood spread out underneath what was left. She gazed across the park at the tower where the Aegis stood with their rifles, sights trained in her direction.

  Tears leaked from Kawai’s eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t fight. Not anymore. No more deaths.

  One. One more death.

  Kawai jumped the barrier and ran at the tower. Her eyes fixed on the Aegis, willing them to shoot her. Another Aegis from the rocket tower stood and pointed his launcher at her path, but three holes plugged his chest before he could fire. Something hot and fast whizzed past the left side of her head. Another brushed her right arm. A third. A fourth. More. All barely missed. Still Kawai ran at the tower, arms and legs pumping wildly, her ears filled with the sound of white noise.

  She was more than halfway there when one of the rifle-bearing Aegis took two bullets: one to the shoulder, spinning him, and one to the back. The other Aegis ducked for cover.

  No!

  And before Kawai knew it she was off her feet and crashing into the grass, blindsided by someone bigger and faster than she. It was Nikotai on top of her. For a moment she thought he was dead, but then he looked at her.

  “What are you doing!”

  She had no answer. Only sobs.

  He grabbed her and pulled her under his chin. “You’re going to live. You
’re going to survive this.”

  “I was supposed to die!” she shrieked. “Why did you save me?”

  “I didn’t save you. I tackled you. They must have fired thirty rounds before I could reach you. All at you. All missed.”

  “Why?” It wasn’t a question from her lips but a demand.

  “Fate. Luck. I don’t know.” Nikotai let her go. “That part’s up to you.”

  * * * * *

  Sammy was back in the forest. One minute he’d been laying on his back, exhausted, looking up at pure white, the next he was here. Scattered rays of moonlight filtered through the trees. Everything was wet with an autumn smell of molding leaves and wet earth. You can still win, Sammy, a familiar voice said. You can still save her. But there is only one way. It has to be my way.

  “You again.” Sammy knew the voice. He’d heard it so many times. “Why do you keep bugging me?”

  Sammy walked faster until he came face to face with the shadow. They mirrored each other in height, but the shadow had no features to distinguish it—a being of pure black. Sammy could see eyes moving in sockets, but no iris, no pupils, no sclera, just black. He saw lips and teeth, all black. No blemishes or wrinkles or scars.

  Only black.

  When Sammy held up a hand, the shadow mirrored him, but Sammy did not touch it. He only looked. The closer his hand came to the shadow hand, the more he felt the energy of it pulsing and pulling. “Are you going to give me the key or what?”

  You think this is a game?

  Sammy connected their palms and fingers. The shadow brightened and shrunk until it disappeared, leaving Sammy with the key. The beautiful key. The head of the key was rounded in gold and silver. The polished metal gleamed brightly in the moonlight, its shaft and cuts perfectly tapered and tuned.

  Choose.

  To Sammy’s left, the cave. He had descended its depths but never unlocked the metal door he stood at and contemplated more than once. To his right, a lake, massive and serene. It extended out as far as he could see. At the edge of the lake was the raft. The raft was a pathetic thing, held together by twine, its log boards raggedy and uneven. Yet somehow he knew it would stay afloat with his weight on it.

  “I’ve already chosen.”

  You have not. Listen to the sounds in the cave.

  Sammy walked closer to the cave’s black mouth and heard voices coming from below. Quiet laughter, kisses, soft whispers. Jeffie’s voice. They were the unmistakable sounds of love. The sounds transformed into her pleas for help—pleas he had heard many times in the dream. He knew they came from behind the iron door at the bottom of the cave’s steps.

  Only the cave will give you the power you need to save her, the voice told him. Sammy sensed the raw power down there, the promise it held. A rush of cool air from within blew over his face, filling him with an energy that made his skin tingle.

  “What source of power is so great that it hides in a cave?” Sammy wondered aloud.

  The power is in you. But down there is the way to unlock it.

  At those words, Sammy understood perfectly what he should do and what sort of power such a place would unlock. He took a step backward, then another, and then he ran to the raft.

  Loneliness. That’s where this raft takes you. Jeffie’s death. And yours. You will die wondering what could have been … if you’d only descended into the lair of power.

  Sammy laughed. “You don’t know the future.” He used his key on the padlock that secured the chain connecting the raft and the pole. Then he stepped gingerly onto the raft, threw the chain off, and sat. “I made a promise.”

  When he pushed off from the shore, a sense of calm filled him. He tucked his knees up to his chest, rested his chin on his knees, and listened to the waters as they splashed around the edges and through the cracks between the logs.

  The voice in his head grew dim, faint, and eventually silent. But the water whispered his name. “Sammy … Sammy … Sammy.”

  He dipped a hand in the water and savored the coolness of it. The pale blue moon was big and full on the horizon. It seemed to Sammy that if he floated long enough, he’d crash into the sky. Then a black spot appeared in the middle of the moon and grew larger as Sammy drifted onward.

  An island.

  The strip of land wasn’t much longer or wider than two or three cruisers put together. A small grove of trees stood in the center of it, their trunks straight and proud. In the midst of the trees, something reflected the moonlight, glinting white or gold. When the raft bumped into the shore, Sammy climbed out and headed toward it.

  Vines hung down from trees like a veil, their tendrils swinging softly in the breeze. From within he caught a scent of something like apples or nectar. He pushed aside the vines and walked through the veil. White flowers clung to the vines on the other side. In the center of the petals were seeds of gold, silver, and topaz. The flowers captured every ray of moonlight and reflected them so perfectly that the inner sanctum of the island was as bright as day. Sammy’s eyes widened as he turned in a circle, examining all of it with wonder and awe.

  In the center of the island was an elegant altar of stones almost twice as tall as himself. Each stone was cut and shaped, smoothed and polished so the altar looked more like a miniature Mayan temple, larger at the base and slightly tapered so that each successive row was smaller than the one underneath. The lowest layer of stones was jet black. But each successive level grew lighter until the perfectly square slab at the top was whiter than even the flowers.

  Seeing nothing but the altar, Sammy considered going back to the raft, but he did not want to leave. Then it occurred to him what he should do. He climbed the rocks, and with every rock he ascended, he felt something leave him—something he didn’t mind parting with. Finally, at the top, he pulled himself onto the altar. It was more comfortable than he would have believed, so he laid down, stretching himself out. Energy rushed into his body, filling him with light and joy, so much that he glowed with it. Every fear, worry, doubt, and regret vanished from his mind.

  A smile grew on his face. He couldn’t contain it. He didn’t want to. And when the energy and joy became so great that he could hardly bear it, Sammy closed his eyes and woke.

  26. Liberty

  Tuesday, November 11, 2087

  BRICKERT’S SQUAD WORKED their way to the front of the blockade as quickly as possible, motivated now by incoming rockets from the rooftops. Their noted presence allowed Sheep Team’s other squad to reach the drones virtually undetected. The grenades did their job, taking out three of the four drone guns stationed at the wall of the barricade.

  “Incoming rocket!” one of his squad members shouted.

  Brickert whirled and blasted while shouting into his com, “Can someone get a hit on that guy?”

  Moments later a NWG cruiser slammed into the building where the launcher-toting Aegis had been, exploding and spraying glass and metal like rainfall. I didn’t mean like that. The image sobered him. How many good men and women would die today? Sammy, Jeffie … who else? Is Natalia already dead?

  “Do we have any air support left?” he asked into his com.

  “All the eagles are down!” Justice responded. “All the goose nests have been taken out. Do what you can to disable the block—” The voice cut off abruptly.

  Justice too?

  Brickert ran for the last drone gun as three CAG cruisers flew overhead. As they passed, they split their ranks, one veering off left, another right, and the third going straight up. Squad B provided cover for Squad A as Brickert led A to the front of the blockade. It took several blasts to disable the last drone gun, and when he finally did, the enemy cruisers fired their missiles at his team.

  “Take cover!” he yelled.

  All nine soldiers on Sheep Team dove for the dirt as two missiles roared in and rocked the ground, spraying earth and smoke like blankets over everything in sight. Brickert’s ears rang from the concussion, hot blood trickled down the side of his head where debris had cut him. “Sh
eep Team report!”

  Only four answered. Brickert called for medics to his location.

  “No medics left,” another voice said. Brickert believed it was Lorenzo Winters, but couldn’t be sure. “Tag the bodies and move on.”

  We can’t win, Brickert realized. All our cruisers are gone. They’re mopping us up. He checked the time. 0841. Sammy was almost an hour late activating the kill code, if he was alive at all.

  Brickert got up on unsteady legs. The first thing he saw when he climbed the blockade with the remaining four members of the team was Natalia’s smoldering car. The explosives in the car had detonated well short of the first barricades, but Sheep Team found no corpses in or near the vehicle. Knowing medics would not be coming, Brickert split his four soldiers in twos to search for what remained of Pig Team.

  Brickert gave Lorenzo an update of his team’s situation while he searched. “We’ve breached the northwest blockade. No sign of Pig Team, but we’ve got a small squad of cruisers circling overhead. They’re prepping to attack again.” Brickert stared up into the sky to spot the cruisers, and saw an odd shape in one tree’s branches.

  A well-executed jump-blast got him into the tree. It was Natalia, her body cradled by three branches, her face and arms cut and bleeding, burns traveled up her right leg and ribs. Brickert said her name softly and felt for a pulse. It was weak, so was her breathing. He said her name a second time, but she did not stir.

  Taking her in his arms, he jumped down from the tree and carried her onto the nearest patch of grass that wasn’t exposed to overhead cruisers. “I’m sorry,” he told her under his breath so the com couldn’t pick up his voice. “I should have disobeyed orders and come after you. I don’t think we’re going to win, Natalia. I don’t think—”

  At least a dozen cruisers flew overhead, streaking and roaring through the sky at something in the distance—a long black shape. Brickert moved in front of Natalia to cover her. “What is this? What’s happening?”