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Dorange stood up from his chair and wiped the tears from his eyes. Adrian staggered backwards and fell back over another chair. He quickly regained his composure and stood up as Dorange stopped within inches of his face.
"That name no longer means anything to me," said Dorange with a quivering voice.
Adrian clenched his jaw and balled up his fists. "How could you ? Don? How could you betray your own kind?"
Dorange narrowed his eyes and clutched Adrian by his flight suit. "I told you. That name no longer means anything to me." Dorange then lifted Adrian off the floor and hurled him about twenty feet across the room.
Adrian screamed in pain as his back slammed against the cold, metal wall of Dorange's office. His body fell, crashing through a small wooden table and finally resting on the floor.
Adrian closed his eyes, grimaced in pain, and wondered how Don had managed to fling him across a large office.
Dorange laughed as he approached Adrian. "You know ? it's funny, Adrian, how things can come full circle."
Adrian staggered to his feet in pain. "Wha ? what do you mean?" he asked, meeting Dorange's angry eyes.
"C'mon, Commander. You should know."
"Know what?"
Dorange laughed, turned, and walked away. He walked to the large plasma shield with Earth in view. Adrian looked as well and could see small fireballs dotting the entire planet.
Dorange stared at Earth for a few moments and then turned to meet Adrian's gaze. "Revenge."
Adrian furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head in confusion.
"Oh ? I always knew you were as intellectually challenged as you were void in leadership abilities, Commander. Revenge. Revenge on you, Adrian. That's what I am talking about."
Adrian ignored Dorange's first comment and stepped forward. "Revenge? Revenge for what?"
"Hah, like you don't know," seethed Dorange as he looked back at his former home, which anyone could tell was under full attack by now.
Adrian walked a little closer to Dorange. "Don ?"
Dorange shot a look of pure hatred toward Adrian.
Adrian ignored it and continued. "Why would you want revenge on me?"
Dorange gave Adrian a wry smile, placed his hands behind his back, and began pacing back and forth with the fiery image of Earth behind him. He ducked his head. "Revenge," he whispered. And then he looked at Adrian with intensity. "If it wasn't for you, Commander, I would have been a hero. I would have been the first human to set foot on Mars. I would have been looked up to as a hero back home ? but no ? NASA had to pick you as Commander of the Mars I mission. As a result, you took my hopes and dreams away from me."
Adrian stepped closer and, with frustration in his voice, he said, "How is that my fault? You know I had nothing to do with the selection process. When NASA chose me, I couldn't believe it. I thought for sure that they would choose you. That's why I made you my copilot on the mission."
"Copilot!" roared Dorange as he turned and flung one of the computer monitors off his desk.
Adrian ducked, turned, and looked as the computer monitor crashed into the wall behind him. He turned around and met the sweltering eyes of Dorange within an inch of his own. Dorange spit and gritted his teeth as he spoke.
"Copilot! You insulted me when you appointed me to that position. You knew who the better leader was, who would have led us safely to Mars and back home again. By making me copilot, you took everything away from me that I worked so hard for ? everything!"
Dorange then grabbed Adrian by the collar with his left hand and set his left arm back into a punching motion, ready to strike. Adrian's eyes widened as Dorange's fist cut through the air to his face. He ducked and felt Dorange's fist skim the top of his head. Adrian dropped to his left knee and swung his right leg out, striking the back of Dorange's legs.
Dorange fell flat onto his back, and Adrian heard the air rush out of his lungs. Dorange rolled around for a few seconds, trying to regain his wind. Adrian stood up and looked over to Dorange. For a brief moment, he almost lent Dorange a hand to help him up, but ignored the instinct, for he knew that Dorange would attack again. Instead, Adrian asked the question that had weighed heavily on his mind for nearly twenty-five years.
"Why did you abandon your crew when we crash landed on Terrest? All these years we thought you were dead. What happened?"
Dorange finally regained his wind and stood up. He glared at Adrian as he spoke. "I had to leave. I could not continue to stay with you and the crew. Especially ? especially, considering how much more loyal they were to you, and how much they knew I despised you as our leader."
"But D ? Dorange, we needed you. You needed us. There's no way we could have survived on a strange, new planet without each other."
"Hah," laughed Dorange. "As you can see, Commander, I survived just fine on my own. After I left you and the crew, I traveled for years on Terrest. I lived off the land for almost fifteen years. The only thing that kept me alive was my motivation for revenge ?" Dorange stopped and gave Adrian a look that sent chills down his spine. He then continued. "Revenge on you, Adrian, and your loyal crew."
"But I don't understand. How did you get involved with the Gnols? Not to mention, how were you able to fool Koroan into believing you were a Gnol yourself? You know how much he hates humans."
Dorange gave Adrian a cynical smile. "That was easy. His daughter-"
"Celeste?"
"No, you imbecile ? his eldest daughter, Raqel. She found me and helped me to see what we humans can become."
Adrian gave Dorange a knowing look.
"Yes, Adrian, you know as well as I do that the Gnols are just more evolved species of human beings. She helped me to see that I could become so much more powerful than you, so much more intelligent, almost like a god."
Adrian was stunned as he looked into Dorange's eyes. For the first time, he was afraid of him. No longer was Don the egotistical, self-assured pilot he knew during his NASA training days. He was now truly someone else, Dorange Gar; a monster that craved power more than anything else.
Dorange strolled back to the plasma shield to look at Earth. Adrian could tell that Dorange's mind seemed to switch from one thought to another. After Dorange was lost in his thoughts for a few minutes, he turned, stared at Adrian, and continued.
"About six months after the Gnols attacked Terrest, I was camped near what is presently Koroan's glorious city of Chast. It was a tough winter. I was near death. My food supply had run out, and I had grown very sick. I almost conceded defeat by killing myself, but the thought of letting you win, Adrian ? was unbearable. I-"
"Don, our lives aren't and weren't a competition."
Dorange spun on his heels. "I told you not to call me by that name!" he shrieked. He then shot both his arms out over his desk in Adrian's direction. Adrian felt a sudden, massive force of pressure on his chest, clutched it in pain, and dropped to his knees. It was as if someone was inside him, squeezing the life out of his heart.
After a few seconds, Dorange lowered his arms, and Adrian immediately felt the invisible pressure on his heart subside. Adrian slowly regained his composure and stood up. He knew full well the kind of potential power he and Dorange could yield because ever since Celeste had volunteered her services to the human cause on Terrest, she had been secretly training Adrian in the use of her Gnol abilities.
The only problem was that Adrian never truly believed that he could use his mind to move objects, let alone read another person's thoughts. Maybe that was why he could never move so much as a sheet of paper with his mind during his training sessions with Celeste. She had always told him that he needed to believe that it could happen. He never believed - until now. But there was another problem. Without gene therapy to mutate his DNA with the addition of the god-gene, there was no way Adrian could become as powerful as a Gnol.
"Yes," said Dorange as he walked around the desk toward Adrian. "You can see now, Adrian, that I am no longer a mere human being ?" Dor
ange stopped speaking for a few seconds and stepped closer to Adrian. Adrian stepped back until his back met the wall of Dorange's office. Dorange smiled, knowing he had the advantage, and continued.
"While I was clinging to life, two Gnol soldiers - who were scouting Terrest for a place to build Koroan's glorious city - found me and took me to their leader." Dorange seemed to become emotional as he spoke. Adrian could tell that whatever happened to him was painful.
"Their leader was Koroan's eldest daughter. She was exquisite. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen and the most merciful. She was nothing like her father. She took pity upon me and instead of killing me or enslaving me in a slave camp, she made a deal with me."
"Wha ? what kind of deal?"
Dorange let out a small laugh. "She told me that if I would join her royal guard as a bodyguard, she would teach me the ways of the Gnol, and she would never let her father know that I was actually a human."
"But what about the two Gnol soldiers that found you? Surely, they knew that you were human as well."
"Yes, but Raqel threatened that if they let anyone know about me, she would have them stripped of their military honors and shamed in front of their families, which is almost as bad as a dishonorable death in the Gnol culture. But ? I always felt uneasy knowing that, besides Raqel, there were two others who knew about me. Ironically, however, you took care of that."
"What? How?"
"They were killed in battle, a battle that you led. I then decided to live up to my end of the deal, and Raqel lived up to hers. I never met Raqel's family while I was one of her royal bodyguards. Whenever she knew that she would be around her family, she would send me on training exercises with Gnol soldiers who were less experienced in their, shall we say, skills. And when she found the time, she trained me personally. I also secretly received gene therapy.
"It was during those training sessions that we fell in love. But Raqel knew that her father would see right through me unless I could demonstrate the mental discipline he and his generals had. After about five years of training and therapy, she finally felt I was ready.
"After that time, Raqel had planted a new name and identity into the Gnol computer system, identifying me as Dorange Gar - the only son of a war chief and his wife back on Gnolom, who had sacrificed their own lives to save their only son by giving up their spots on one of the transports off the planet so that he may serve the powerful and great Koroan Chast."
Adrian looked at Dorange with apprehension.
Dorange noticed and stepped closer to him. "What? You find that hard to believe?"
At first Adrian did not want to answer, afraid of what the unpredictable Dorange might do, but he did nonetheless. "Yes, I do find that hard to believe. How was it that you and Raqel were able to fool Koroan, with his superior intellect and telepathic powers, into believing that you were a Gnol?"
Dorange's face seemed to change from one of anger to one of cynical happiness, as if he was glad Adrian had asked the question. He let out a small laugh. "Ah ? you see, Koroan, probably the most ruthless leader I have ever known or heard of, has - at least until recently with Celeste's treachery - a soft spot for his beloved daughters. Of course, he had me checked out after I met him, and when some discrepancies appeared in my fabled Gnol military career, Raqel set those straight with her father. And you know what? He believed her. Can you believe it? He took her word over his most trusted advisers. Needless to say, I eventually fell into good graces with him and, upon learning about my ability to fly air and spacecraft, he made me general over his entire air and space force.
"But it got even better than that. I also learned that according to Gnol tradition, a tribal chief can only give the throne to a blood born son. However, since Koroan had only two daughters, his only choice was to give the throne to the Gnol husband of his eldest daughter. Little does he know that his own son-in-law is of the very race he so despises and longs to purge. Soon, however, he will see the error of his ways as he will be taken care of, and I - Dorange Gar - will ascend to the throne of a god!"
Dorange, with a look of such evil on his face that it sent spine-tingling chills down Adrian's back, hit his chest with his fist and looked up at the metallic ceiling in his office.
After what seemed like a few minutes of Dorange lost in his thoughts, Adrian shook his head and turned to look at his home world. It was horrifying. Even from this distance in space, he could see the destruction that the Gnols had inflicted. He continued to watch and could make out the small outlines of Gnol space fighters entering Earth's atmosphere. As he watched and Dorange lingered in his thoughts, a small seed of anger and frustration that had been bottled up for twenty-five years began to sprout.
Even when Don had acted totally irresponsibly and unprofessionally on their original mission, and abandoned his crew, Adrian had always tried to forgive him and see the good in him. However, with what he witnessed now and the memory of Dorange shooting Doc in the back, he now knew that all remnants of good left in Donald Garrett were gone.
Adrian turned his gaze to look at the gloating Dorange. He gritted his teeth and felt his heart rate rise. He then closed his eyes and tried to focus all of his frustration and anger into one singular thought.
There was a buzzing sound within the office. Dorange was startled out of his trance. "What is it?" he replied.
"General, this is Major Pontain on the surface. We have captured one of the targets, Kevin Palmer."
Adrian jerked his eyes open and stared in shock at Dorange. Dorange returned his stare with a look of victory and satisfaction. "Very well, Major. Hold the prisoner with the others and await further orders," Dorange said as he continued to give Adrian an evil smile.
"Yes, General," the major replied.
Adrian tried to speak, but couldn't get the words out of his mouth.
Dorange spoke for him. "Yes, Adrian, one of the primary targets of this mission was not only to claim Earth as our own, but to capture your brother as well. He was going to be used as bait to bring the famous Adrian Palmer, the leader of the pitiful Terrestrian rebellion, out of hiding. But what luck. You just fell from the sky into my lap, and now we have you both. When Koroan visits his newly conquered world, you and your brother will both be presented to him and eventually tortured and executed by Koroan himself. And I will reap the rewards."
Adrian wanted to lunge for Dorange, but he knew better. He knew that if he didn't focus his thoughts, Dorange would tear him apart with his abilities. Adrian closed his eyes again.
Within the depths of his soul, Adrian felt a powerful and strange emotion. It was oddly familiar, but also different in that it was more powerful. The feeling surged from his soul outward to his body. His muscles felt energized and potent. His mind was alert and more focused than he ever remembered it being.
Dorange's communicator buzzed again. Adrian slowly opened his eyes and noticed that his vision seemed sharper and clearer.
"What is it!" demanded Dorange.
"Sorry to bother you again, General. This is Major Pontain. I failed to mention in my previous communication that we also have the children of the target in custody."
Adrian took three steps closer to Dorange upon hearing the news that his brother's children were also captured.
Dorange smiled and looked at Adrian. "That is good news, Major. I am sure that his lordship would enjoy torturing and killing these children just before he does the same to Kevin and Adrian Palmer."
Adrian clenched his teeth and continued to focus all of his energy into one complete thought.
"Yes, General. Pontain out."
Dorange continued to stare at Adrian with the same smile on his face. "Ah, this is good news, Adrian. It looks as if the children of your brother will suffer the same fate as you and Kevin. It's too bad we don't have your children here as well. What satisfaction it would give me to see your entire family tortured and killed."
Adrian returned Dorange's glare while he continued to focus. The energy that he felt surgin
g through his body was now at an all-time high. He now felt ready. He slowly raised his left arm with his elbow bent and his palm facing Dorange. Dorange's expression changed from one of pure joy at his imminent victory to concern. He lunged for Adrian, but Adrian jolted his palm forward. Dorange's momentum stopped, and he flew backwards through the air. Dorange's body slammed into the plasma shield with Earth in full view.
Adrian watched in shock as Dorange let out a low grunt and fell to the floor. It worked, he thought. Just as he had visualized, he had used the telekinetic powers Celeste had taught him. The only difference this time, however, was - he believed.
Adrian saw Dorange lying on the floor, struggling for breath behind the gigantic crystal desk. He slowly walked around the desk and stood above Dorange. "Call off the attack and release my brother and his children."
"Or ... or what?" Dorange replied while he struggled to regain his wind.
"Or ?" Adrian couldn't believe what he was about to say, "? or you won't live to see your victory."
Dorange laughed and raised his body to one knee. He looked up at Adrian with fire in his eyes and said, "Even if you kill me, which isn't likely, there is no way you will escape this ship, and my colonel will still make sure your executions are carried out."
Adrian knew Dorange was right. Nonetheless, if he was going to die soon, he was determined to kill Dorange first. "Release them now!"
Dorange bowed his head as if he had acceded to defeat, but Adrian knew better. Adrian reached down to grab Dorange by the hair and lift him up. Just as Adrian touched the back of Dorange's head, Dorange sprang to his feet and, at the same time, released a vicious backhand blow to Adrian's cheek. Adrian felt his jaw crack, and the momentum of the blow threw him back.
He crashed through the giant crystal desk, and felt a sharp pain in his left leg as shattered crystal fell all around him. After he hit the floor, he tried to open his mouth, but couldn't. His jaw was broken, and the pain swelled from his jaw to his head. He also looked down to where the pain was coming from in his leg and noticed a long shard of crystal stuck in the back of his thigh, extending all the way through to the front.
He immediately reached down to pull the shard of crystal out. But before he could grab the crystal, Dorange grabbed him by one leg and one arm and flung him across the room. Adrian immediately closed his eyes and concentrated. If he didn't focus all of his thoughts, the imminent collision with the wall of Dorange's office would certainly kill him.
Adrian extended the hand that was closest to the oncoming wall and telekinetically stopped his momentum. He floated in midair for a few seconds and looked at Dorange. Dorange had a small smile out of the corner of his mouth as if he was impressed with Adrian's newfound power.
Adrian dropped to the floor and groaned in pain as his leg with the shard of crystal impaled into it hit the floor first. He rolled over onto his back and looked at his leg. He noticed that he had already lost a lot of blood, as there was a trail from where Dorange first picked him up to his present position.
"I have to say that I am impressed," said Dorange, walking toward Adrian. "But you are still not as powerful as me."
Adrian frantically tried to pull the crystal from his leg. But before he could pull it out, he began to float in midair. He looked at Dorange. Dorange had both of his arms extended with a look of sheer hatred on his face. Adrian tried to move, but was frozen.
With a sudden upward motion of his arms, Dorange sent Adrian flailing to the ceiling of his office. Adrian's body slammed into the metallic ceiling, which caused it to dent. At the same time, Adrian felt the crack of his nose and several of his ribs. For a moment, he thought he had passed out from the pain because he couldn't recall hitting the floor again. He opened his eyes and could vaguely see the blurry image of Dorange standing above him.
Adrian tried to move, but he couldn't. He was in a tremendous amount of pain and extremely weak from the loss of blood because of his leg wound. He heard Dorange speak, but he couldn't understand him because it was like trying to listen to someone speak to him underwater. He closed his eyes again and screamed in pain as he felt another bone-crushing blow to his chest. All of the air in his lungs exited his body. He opened his eyes and saw the blurry image of Dorange's fist preparing for another blow.
As Adrian struggled for air, his hearing came back. He heard Dorange.
"I have been dreaming for this moment as long as I can remember. Why give Koroan the honor of killing you, when it is all I think about day and night? We'll just say you died because of the injuries from your crash. Good-bye, Adrian Palmer."
Adrian continued to struggle for air and said a silent prayer. He knew this was it. Every moment of his life seemed to flash through his mind. He thought of his parents, then Melissa, then Gloria, and finally, Anyta. He saw the images of his children - Kylee, Bantyr, Lexis, and Jake. Thoughts of Jake flashed through his mind. Images of Jake as a baby, a toddler, and a little boy played like a lightning fast movie in his mind.
And then Adrian saw another image. Only this image was not familiar to him. He knew this memory was not his. Could he have died already? Was he witnessing something with his spirit while his body lay mangled in a pool of blood? He didn't know. He no longer felt the pain of his body. The image was so clear and so lifelike. It was as if his spirit was floating in midair, witnessing something that brought joy to his heart.
Adrian saw himself sitting in a rocking chair in a dimly lit room. He was holding a baby boy. The baby was about eight months old and turned his head to look at Adrian's spirit. The baby smiled, and instantly, Adrian's spirit heard the baby's mind.
Fight for your life, Grandfather. Fight!
In an instant, Adrian was back into his dying body on the floor of Dorange's office. He opened his eyes and saw Dorange as he began to deliver the blow that would certainly kill him. This time, however, Adrian's vision was clear and sharp, and Dorange seemed to move in slow motion. Adrian felt a flow of energy pulsate throughout his body. He telekinetically slid himself out from under Dorange's legs, jumped to one knee, and pulled the shard of crystal out of his leg just as Dorange turned around with a look of shock on his face.
Dorange bull-rushed Adrian, but just as fast, Adrian sent the long shard of crystal hurtling through the air. Dorange noticed and tried to dodge, but the crystal was traveling at such a velocity that Dorange didn't have time to react. The crystal hit Dorange in the throat and sliced all the way through before it finally stopped, penetrating the metal office wall.
Dorange reached for his throat, pressed his communicator on his collar, and fell face down into his own pool of blood. His body jerked and squirmed as his life source drained out of him.
The door to Dorange's office immediately slid open, and several uniformed Gnol officers rushed in. Adrian felt weak again and barely felt a couple of the officers drag him off. Just before he lost consciousness, Adrian looked at Earth under full attack and knew that it wasn't time for him to die. Not until after his vision came to pass.
Worlds Without End: The Mission (Book 1) Page 81