by RMGilmour
“He’s missed you,” she grinned as she spoke. “To this day, your parents continue to be his fondest decoration.”
Haize placed her hand upon Lena’s shoulder, and from the intensity of her gaze still aimed at the back of Lena’s head, it was clear she was urging Lena to stay where she was. I doubted she would get through the field anyway.
“Go ahead, little one,” Shaylen continued. “Isn’t that what he called you? Little one. I shall even allow you through the barrier.”
“Lena,” I gasped, and tried to run between them, but Jordan grabbed my arm and pushed me behind him.
Several militia adjusted their aim, their weapons now trained upon us. But I didn’t care, I had to do something. For even if Shaylen did remove the field, Lena was too far away to reach her before she would feel the force of Shaylen‘s weapon. I knew Lena wouldn’t use the power of her suit. From the look on her face she wanted to use her bare hands. But Shaylen however, I was sure, was arrogant enough to fire instead of fight.
As though reading her mind, several militia came to Shaylen‘s aid, stepping forward with weapons raised. Shaylen kept her focus upon Lena. Jordan however, began to slowly push me backward, moving me closer to Mason, who was now back at the Spire.
“Isn’t that sweet, your little friend come to your aid,” Shaylen said.
“I don’t need help from anyone to defeat you,” Lena told her.
“You seem to forget who’s holding the weapons,” Shaylen remarked, waving hers in the air for a moment, before steadying it once more.
“It didn’t stop me last time,” Lena responded, sneering at the rectangular object Shaylen aimed at her. “I don’t need a piece of machinery to do my work for me.”
As though bored with the banter, Shaylen stepped back to her air screen to study the readout. “Mason,” she almost growled at him. “What is this?”
“Almost done,” Mason mumbled, as his eyes skipped around the data before him. He was no longer using his hands to work; no doubt they were moving too slow for his needs.
Shaylen however, changed the direction of her aim, opting instead for Mason’s head. “Whatever it is you think you are doing, Mason, stop it right now,” she demanded. “Step away from the Spire.”
And he did so, moving closer to where Jordan and I stood.
“We had an agreement,” she said.
“We did,” Jordan responded, side-stepping once more, and blocking her view of Mason. But that only meant her weapon was now pointed at him. “We agreed that we needed to save what was left of this world from those hellbent on destroying it,” he finished.
“People such as yourself?” Lena interjected as she inched closer to the barrier, but her question was not for Shaylen, it was for Jordan.
“Stay out of this, Lena,” Jordan argued back.
I couldn’t see his face and so I turned toward Mason, hoping to catch something in his expression, of what may be going on, but he was already looking back at me. He indicated with a quick shift of his eyes, for me to go to him, and I turned back, to scan the room behind me, wondering if I should. Shaylen appeared to be distracted, almost confused by Jordan’s words. And as Lena eased ever closer to the barrier, she glanced across at Aleric, who gave her a slight nod of his head.
“That’s enough,” Shaylen warned, but I couldn’t tell who she was speaking to. She stepped back to her screen, entered a command and called, “Ekkehard…”
“Now,” Mason said, below his breath.
Jordan turned and lifted me off the floor, swinging me closer to Mason. He grabbed both of my hands in his, lifting them up and holding them out, aiming for Mason’s air-screen.
And in another step, we were there.
“What are you doing?” Shaylen called. Jordan’s sudden movement no doubt, sent her off balance.
He wrapped his fingers around mine, stretching my palms flat, and planted them both upon the screen. But all I felt was a tingling sensation across my palms. It wasn’t painful, but I knew well enough that the worst pain was sometimes delayed.
“Jordan,” I barely managed. It seemed like an eternity had passed since I’d awoken that morning, wrapped in the bed clothes under my bed. And from that moment, the never-ending barrage of events determined to shake me, was finally taking its toll. Fear took over, tightening my chest, as I felt Mason’s work pulled from me.
“Lydia, it’s only the information I’d given you before,” Mason said. “While it was inside you, no one would touch you. I’m sorry to put you through this, but I need it back.”
“You’re ok,” Jordan tried to reassure me.
“The Guardian is with us, not her,” Mason said. I was relieved at least, to have one less thing to worry about.
“And she can’t touch us,” Jordan added. “We’ve moved her shield from in front of the Heart to in front of us, and reversed the polarity. You are safe.”
I was safe. But what about everyone else. The tingling sensation traveled up my arm to my head, and as each piece of information flowed from me and down into the screen, I briefly saw its contents flash within my brain. But it was information I could neither comprehend, nor retain for future analysis.
“NO!” Shaylen roared her frustration, but I could no longer see her movements and I hoped she wasn’t readying to fire.
But the room was determined to shake the last of my nerves, as the sound of fighting, shuffling, and yelling dominated my every sense. Light flashes came from both sides, as weapons were discharged. The field protecting us shimmered sporadically, in a display of fractured light, as it was hit repeatedly, and all I could think of was Lena, Mya, Haize, Dax, Aleric and the others amongst the Heart and the Rathe, on the other side of that field.
But before I could turn to find my friends amongst the fighting, my ears painfully stoppered up and then popped. A violent whoomp filled the air, and then all sound was sucked from the room, leaving a deafening silence.
An anguished cry began as a muffle, but grew louder with each moment, as my hearing returned. The sound, pushed its slow way through the deafening squeal in my ears.
And I realized someone was calling… screaming Dax’s name.
30
Defenseless
As Jordan pulled our hands away from the screen, he pulled me to him. “Don’t look,” he whispered to me, but I had to. Something had happened to Dax. I had to know.
“Please,” I whispered back to him.
“Lydia, no,” he pleaded. But I didn’t listen, and I peered around him to see.
A wave of light pulsed within Dax, as it slowly traveled the length of his body, and then back up again. With each pass, his body convulsed. His face was lifeless. Portions of his clothing had begun to dissolve, revealing areas of his skin that began to darken in places, forming tiny patches. But as I studied him, I realized the patches on his skin, were holes.
“Stop it!” Lena screamed, her hands fluttering over him. “Someone, stop it.”
Aleric commandeered Shaylen‘s air-screen, entering commands as fast as his fingers and his mind could move. Within moments, a field shimmered around Dax, halting the movement of the light, and stopping the deterioration of his body.
I clamped my mouth shut as my stomach heaved. No way I was keeping that down, and I swung my head away from the scene. My fingers contracted around Jordan’s, and I felt my knees give way. Jordan worked to free one of his hands from mine. He then wrapped that arm around me, catching me, before I fell.
Deal with it, I tried to tell myself. Don’t think about it. Just deal with it.
But I had to think about it. The barrier had kept us safe, kept me safe. If not for me, it wouldn’t have been moved. And Dax as a result, was lost.
This one, his death, was on me.
Another one.
“Dax!” Lena continued to call, over and over, but her voice was fading. Her warrior strength was giving way to the loss of the one person in two dimensions, that she’d allow
ed herself to care for.
I peered around Jordan once more, anticipating seeing more bodies in a similar condition as Dax’s, but his was the only one that had been struck in such a way. None of the Heart or Rathe appeared hurt very much, but several of Shaylen‘s soldiers lay haphazard across the floor. More warriors filled the room, followed by the Rathe. All of them stood over, and surrounded, the remaining disarmed militia.
“Mya, get him upstairs,” Mason urged. “You know what to do.”
Mya knelt next to Dax’s body, preparing to move him. But Lena hovered over him, refusing to let her get close.
“Don’t touch him,” she screamed. Her pain drove through me, seeing her this way. Her heartache became mine. She was always in control. But the loss of Dax had melted her warrior strength, revealing the torment beneath.
Haize knelt beside her, and placed her hands upon Lena’s shoulders. She spoke only to Lena, softly, commanding. Gently, she pulled her away from Dax, holding her close, and murmuring to her, words I couldn’t hear, but their meaning was clear. I expected Haize to touch Lena’s temple, to sedate her, or calm her, but she didn’t need to. The words she’d spoken, had pulled Lena from the edge of losing herself to grief, and back to the warrior she was.
Mya placed one hand upon Dax’s head and with her other she grasped his arm. Within moments they were gone. No fade. No gradual ease into the process of moving from one place to another. Just gone.
One last moan escaped Lena, before Haize helped her to her feet. Then tensing once more, she turned to face Shaylen.
“I got her!” Aleric called as he moved between Shaylen and Lena.
“What?” Lena gasped in disbelief, and paused her forward momentum. “Aleric, you’re helping them?”
If Aleric answered, it wasn’t out loud.
“Aleric!” Lena roared, as she pounded her fist against a transparent shield that rippled from her force. She then stalked around the room to where the Heart and the remaining Rathe held the militia. All of them were outside of Aleric’s new shield, except for Aleric, Mason, Jordan, myself, and a fallen, disarmed Shaylen. Why Aleric would keep Shaylen in the room with us, I didn’t know. He should have fed her to Lena. Instead, he pulled her up to her knees, and held her in place with one hand upon her shoulder, while his fingers pressed into her neck.
I looked back up at Jordan, but he was only staring down at me with concern. He brought my one hand, still clasping his, to his lips, and as he kissed each finger, my grip upon his loosened.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “This was the only way I could keep you safe.” His voice was soothing, his every inflection finding their home within me.
But despite the calm, a moment of anger tried to rise within me. I wanted to fight him, to push him away, for leading me to believe even in its smallest measure, that he wasn’t the person I loved and believed in. And my fists, driven by the pain and fear that had filled me, beat upon his chest.
The feeling however, quickly dissipated as his arms wrapped tight around me, and he released his hold upon his soul, filling me with his presence once more. I inhaled long and deep, and let myself fall into him.
But as relieved as I was to have him back, I could sense that he wasn’t quite with me. There was a large part of himself that he was still holding back, and I refused to believe it was anything untoward.
Mason moved around us to stand next to the planet Pelas, still floating in the air. Then entering several commands on his screen, he watched the planet lose its color. The statistics about the planet scrolled in the air next to him.
“What is this?” Mason moaned.
“Bring up the others?” Jordan urged him.
One by one, planets and moons formed before us, each providing their own data. I had no idea what we were looking at, except that each of them appeared dark, lifeless, and the code confirmed what we were seeing.
“What have you done?” Mason accused Shaylen, his voice cracking. “Where are they? Where are the colonists?”
“There is no life left. On any of them,” Jordan gasped.
“There is life. On Pelas. My people,” she responded, but her voice was strained.
“Twelve planets and two moons,” Jordan moaned in disbelief. “The fourteen colonies, gone. All those people.” The crushing weight of his anguish filled me, as his memories flooded his mind. His arms slipped from me, and he stepped closer to the images, glancing from one colony to the next.
“So, we’re it. We’re all that’s left,” Mason murmured, more to himself than the rest of the room, as he also stared at the planets in turn. “We are the last city.”
“Remove the shield!” Lena demanded, but with less force than before. Mason nodded to Aleric, and the room was opened.
“Release my men and I’ll tell you all you need to know,” Shaylen demanded.
“You’ll tell us anyway,” Jordan strode toward her, and grasped her throat, tearing her out of Aleric’s hold. “Don’t think I won’t rip it out. You killed millions of people here on Threa, and billions more on the colonies. And for what? What reason?” He shook her briefly and then stopped, to search her face as though he was trying to read her. “You’re not even from here,” he said, gaping at her. He then glanced back at Mason, muttering his name in disbelief, before turning back to Shaylen. “How many times have you done this? In how many dimensions? What are you after?”
“Jordan,” Aleric said, placing his hand upon Jordan’s shoulder, not restraining, but instead to get his attention.
Shaylen‘s face had begun to turn a nasty shade of purple, and I guessed he wanted to save her. Why though, remained to be seen.
“Not this way,” Aleric said to him.
Jordan loosened his grip, but he didn’t release her. He allowed her to breathe, to cough and sputter, and to regain her senses.
When she appeared to be lucent, he asked her, “How long have you been back? Here, on this planet?”
“Almost five months,” she gasped.
“How long has it been since our first meeting?”
“Several weeks.”
“Why haven’t you asked me?”
“Ask you what?” she said, and gave him a look of confusion.
When Jordan responded, his voice flooded with anguish, “The one question that should matter the most to you.”
I felt him then. All of him, as his stranglehold on his emotions began to unravel in tortured waves, almost sending me to my knees.
Shaylen‘s eyelids fluttered, ever so briefly, as though she was trying to remember. After several moments, her only response was a slight shake of her head.
“Fennean,” Jordan whispered, and as he did, his feelings flooded me. I couldn’t breathe. I was sure he couldn’t either.
“I’m sure he’s forgotten me,” she said.
“He missed you. Those first few years, he would dream of you, cry for you in the night,” he paused. The weight of Jordan’s anguish was crushing him, and was drowning me, as he released it all. He may not have known that I could feel it, but I would feel every ounce of his pain if it would relieve even the smallest portion of his. The words he’d spoken so far, indicated to me that he was speaking of a child. Theirs.
“He missed you,” he repeated. But his voice broke on his next words, “Right up until this.”
And as he spoke, he released every emotion that had been bottled up inside of him in a wave of overwhelming loss that hit everyone in the room. While keeping one hand around Shaylen’s throat, his free hand flew across the air-screen that Shaylen had used, entering his own commands.
Moments later, a memory descended upon us all, covering us in Jordan’s image, filling us with a terror that surpassed any nightmare. And we watched and felt all, as the city around us shattered into pieces. Fenn, the only person that mattered, the one person we were supposed to protect with our lives was torn from our grip as we fell from the force of the shaking ground. A gray sheen covered us then,
but only us-me-him-Jordan in the memory. Fenn was on the other side.
“Fenn,” we called over and over, while trying to get through the sheen to him, but the barrier wouldn’t budge. We reached for a weapon, blasting it over and over, trying to tear a hole in the gray wall. And as we did, we watched helpless. The pain tearing through our chest, as Fenn’s strangled screams reached us through the sheen. The wall before us began to give way, creating a crevice for us to reach through, but as we did Fenn’s cries fell silent. We were too late. His body broke into indistinguishable pieces, that were carried away with the force that blew across the planet.
Our legs crumbled beneath us. The disbelief darkened our insides. We’d failed. Nothing else in this life mattered. But before our knees hit the ground, the shockwave blasted through us as well, ending the memory.
My sight returned, a watery haze, and I blinked to clear the blurriness. All in the room had fallen to their knees, and I knew not a single person had been spared Jordan’s pain. It continued still, to course through me, carving out a hollow within my chest. I was sure my soul had left with the fractured image of Fenn.
I wanted to run to him, enclose him within my love for him. But I knew there was nothing I could do to ease the pain that was forever embedded within every cell that made him who he was. I’d lost my family on Earth, all of them. But this pain was different. This was his child. This was a grief that took everything, his heart, his soul, his reason for living.
Jordan still clutched Shaylen around the throat. All color had drained from her face, but this time not from lack of oxygen. She seemed to shrink. The only thing holding her upright was Jordan’s fist, tightening once more.
“You did that,” he whispered, his voice hoarse as though from screaming, which he may have been doing throughout the memory.
“Jordan,” Aleric placed a hand on his shoulder again, wincing as he did so, as though touching him renewed the pain of the memory we’d all experienced.
Jordan loosened his grip, but he didn’t release her. She slumped forward, wrapping one of her hands protectively around her throat, and her other around Jordan’s wrist. Jordan reached for his screen, and entered a command. The scene and the pain of Fenn’s death played over and over, but only for her, trapping her in the emotional torture. Everyone else in the room this time, was spared.