Farthest Reach

by Lauren Moore

“Just stay like that, okay?” She clung to him when he lifted her into his arms, and took off, intent on getting over that hill. “We have to get over the hill! The tele-station is just on the other side!”

  Chris crested the hill. He slid halfway down, pushing Susan to follow the others. “Don’t stop until you’re there!”

  “You have to come too!”

  “I will, but I promised to get all of you home, didn’t I?”

  His legs burned climbing back up. A horror show of fantastical proportions spread out between the wreckage and the dune. One cast whirlwinds of flame twisting across the desert while balls of fire hailed down on the attackers.

  What the…?

  It wasn’t just electricity; the captives were drawing power out of thin air and using it.

  It was unbelievable.

  And terrifying.

  V’Trahl stumbled, shot in the leg. Chris took off toward him, struggling again in the sand. When he reached V’Trahl, he retrieved his gun and let loose a few shots at the black-clad attackers. He pulled the man up with an arm around his waist then fired a few more shots.

  “We will hold them off with our lives; this is not your fight! Get to the station!”

  “We all go home today.”

  V’Trahl hung on to him, and the other two fell in behind them.

  When they made it over the dune, the familiar shimmer from the tele-station entrance never looked so good. Chris pumped what strength he had left into his legs. He chanced another look over his shoulder and could swear he saw tubed heads over the crest of the hill before the shimmering light of the tele-station doorway momentarily blurred everything.

  Gasping, he slowed and stopped, checking to make sure everyone made it. Satisfied, he turned back to the door, gun half raised, ready to fire. He felt calm, almost serene, and in the back of his mind, it kind of scared him.

  V’Trahl carefully pushed Chris’s arm down. “They will not follow us any longer. Their power lies in being anonymous. You showed great courage today.”

  Chris resisted at first, until he saw the worried faces of those unaware of the terror they barely escaped. Lush tropical foliage surrounded the outskirts of the open-roofed station, and lapping waves somewhere in the distance brought the last few hours into perspective.

  “I don’t think Frank made it…” Chris offered.

  “But we are safe, for now. The man you call Frank made his choice.” V’Trahl gestured to the group behind him. “We thank you for not sharing in his mission.”

  How was he going to explain this to his boss? No one would believe the truth. “I’m just glad you guys are safe.”

  Susan tugged his sleeve, her smile easing his worries. “Thank you so much!”

  “Hey, you’re welcome. I bet your family’s pretty worried about you.”

  “We will make sure she gets home with haste. It is dangerous for so many of us to be together.” V’Trahl said, indicating a few who were slipping away into the crowd of the station.

  “That was pretty awesome, what you did back there. There’s strength in numbers.”

  “Perhaps. Safe travels, Chris.”

  ***

  Bruised, filthy, and bleeding down the side of his face, Chris shuffled into his house. His earpiece buzzed and he groaned.

  “Yeah?”

  “What is this about my ship getting wrecked! Moarnicoan traffic control is blowing up my phone! What happened out there? Where are you? Why is Frank ignoring my calls!”

  “I’m taking some time off.”

  “You get your ass back here and explain to me what—”

  Chris disconnected the call and collapsed onto the couch. “Maybe later.”

  “Babe, is that you? You’re early. How was work?” his wife said from the other room.

  “Turns out I’m not cut out to be an in-flight tech.”

  She giggled. “Good.”

  “You’re happy?”

  “Of course! I don’t want you flying off into the great beyond. It’s terrifying. I’ve been a wreck all week!”

  “Yeah, I don’t think space is the scariest thing out there anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just—I’m seeing the universe a bit differently now. I guess I learned some things.”

  “Like what?”

  Chris leaned back, closing his eyes. “For one, don’t ask questions unless you’re ready for the answer.”

  THE END

  © Copyright 2019 By Kalene Williams

  About the Author

  Kalene Williams

  Kalene Williams is a mother, reader, and dreamer of worlds. She is also a co-host of Keystroke Medium’s The Writer’s Journey podcast.

  For the Children

  William S Frisbee

  Facing the main display of the combat information center, hundreds of empty seats waited for officers that would never again use them. Fleet Commander Shon’tar wished he could hear another living voice. The silence haunted him, poisoning his sanity. Over three hundred Gena officers once operated the extensive, multi-level command center. Now only broken monitors, collapsed catwalks, and gutted consoles stood duty. A lone robot trundled through the wreckage. Solitude burned away his soul, killing him slowly, but soon the war would be over.

  In hundreds of years, nothing had changed. Years were lost like days, or hours. Time meant nothing to him now with the memories merging together, their sequence unimportant. This horror would all have to end, but Shon’tar didn’t know how. His mind twisted and turned, trying to give him clues and solutions, but what could he use and what mental injuries were preventing him from finding a solution?

  Shon’tar missed the happy voices of children.

  In his mind’s eye, the bodies still sprawled in the places they had fallen. He would never escape the stench. The warstar had taken more than a year to allocate robotic work parties from less critical areas to clearing the bridge of the dead, to remove the shattered hopes and dreams of a race from the place they died.

  The pain tore at his heart to just look at where she had fallen. The last time he looked, he did not recognize her rotting corpse and had cried for days.

  The auxiliary board in front of Shon’tar’s command chair flickered without animation. The shattered holoboard in the center of the bridge had been silent for centuries. On the smaller display, his gigantic warstar dwarfed the smaller Nackthra cruiser. A gargaton chasing a mite, two ships caught in a never-changing pursuit where the laws of physics chained them.

  The silence whispered to him and his body began to shake. Leaning back and grasping his chair, Shon’tar willed the memories pressing on his consciousness to go away; he denied them, but they forced him to surrender to their control.

  ***

  “Target the Skatoth and escorts, with all weapons,” Shon’tar ordered his gunnery commander.

  “Life,” said the officer, acknowledging Shon’tar’s command and ordering the gunnery officers to stop firing on lesser vessels and focus fire on the massive planet ship.

  “Full speed ahead. Put us between the flagship and Skatoth!” Shon’tar ordered his navigator commander.

  “Life,” replied the navigator commander.

  The warstar surged forward with her weaponry lashing out to savage the warstar, Skatoth and the Nackthra cruisers threatening the Gena flagship. Legions of crew members died as hundreds of thousands of weapons slashed across the darkness. Physical weapons tore into the heavy armor and psychic weapons obliterated the minds of the unprotected. The Skatoth focused on the Gena flagship, ignoring everyone else in its single-minded quest for destruction.

  The Skatoth detonated in a burst of brilliant light amid the stellar void. Showers of burning sparks expanded outward from the center of the glowing cloud of gasses, enveloping and killing squadrons of smaller ships.

  A great cruiser that escaped the carnage spewed forth landing craft at Shon’tar’s ship. Psychics aboard the mother ship shielded the enemy troops, but the thousands of sma
ller vessels succumbed to mundane weapons. Legions died, but more escaped a fiery doom to land on the hull of Shon’tar’s warstar.

  Shon’tar turned to his daughter, Teleta; she was already ordering shipboard troops to the surface of the warstar. If the enemy breached the hull, the fighting would take months. Her reasoning and tactics were flawless as she sent her warriors to die in defense of the Weeping Heart.

  With his daughter here where he could protect her, Shon’tar turned his attention to the rest of the crew. He had nothing to say or do except watch as they destroyed the Nackthra warships providing support to the landing commandos. This would be a costly victory even with the elimination of the Skatoth.

  ***

  Teleta was dead. Everyone massacred. Tired, Shon’tar reluctantly glanced at her deserted console, which had shattered in front of her, killing her with a shard of metal to the brain. The black on the console could be old blood, but Shon’tar refused to look closely or question what his eyes told him. The Weeping Heart had more important things to repair, like weapons, shields, and propulsion. Battle stations without crew, like Teleta’s, were much lower priority.

  On the screen, he saw the last Nackthra ship fleeing through the depths of space, and he sensed their minds, their very souls. Four of them, the last of a race once numbering trillions, fled not only for themselves but also for their species. Their survival now stained the tapestry of life, an infection that would spread and kill if Shon’tar allowed it and he refused.

  Around him, Shon’tar sensed the distant minds of other fledgling alien civilizations. They did not concern him if they did not interfere with his pursuit of the last Nackthra ship. As a warrior race, the Nackthra would not surrender, and they would not forget or forgive. Eventually, the enemy would seek vengeance for the war they had started.

  His daughter had died yesterday, and he looked over at her station. Her body was gone. No, he corrected himself, reading the time display. She had died six hundred years ago. Shon’tar ground his teeth as the visions came back.

  ***

  “The Star Hope is losing integrity!” Trellna cried, staring at the main screen.

  The Gena flagship disintegrated beneath the fire of two enemy warstars before Shon’tar could bring his ship to the rescue. Raging destructive energies of the flagship’s demise reached out to engulf the nearest enemy warstar, tearing them both apart. The second enemy warstar, far enough away to avoid complete destruction, drifted, not fully dead, but close. Planetary populations died and Shon’tar found himself in command of the last of the Gena. The weight of the enemy psychics pressed against his mind, trying to destroy his soul as he resisted their will. Two battles raged in the darkness between stars—one of energy weapons and missiles, the other with minds and souls. A mindblazer torpedo struck the hull, burning away armor and shattering the minds of lesser Gena.

  Shon’tar’s scream died in his throat as he pulled back his protection to save his own life. Too many needed his shield, but he had to decide to rescue fewer or none.

  Each Gena death, each soul that spiraled away into oblivion, accused him of failure.

  ***

  Nothing short of enemy action or a severe accident could kill him as he lay there in the command chair, which amplified his psionic powers. Immortality was its own curse. Robots too small for the naked eye traveled between the chair and his body, supplying him with needed nutrients and medicines so he wouldn’t have to leave the desolate command center that had once held the finest Gena officers.

  The silence whispered in his mind, polluting his soul. No more would the people of Natrala build fine crystal sculptures or the people of Sanala debate theology. The academies of Fabrala were burnt cinders inside the atmosphere of the system’s now contracting primary star. Nackthra would no longer hold their flying tournaments or lightning dance to the sounds of their music. They would no longer have the pleasure of watching combat in their coliseums as slaves fought each other and the creatures their troops found.

  The minds of the Nackthra blazed like fiery beacons before him, contaminating the universe. Two crippled wrecks, hurtling through the empty vastness of space. Both ships had barely survived the last battle, but they would never surrender. Peace was no longer possible, not now, not in a million years.

  The combat information center was all Shon’tar had seen in centuries. Restricted to his chair since the Gena flagship had died and the great fleet shattered, Shon’tar was the last of the Gena race. He sensed no Genian souls out in the vastness of space. If any remained, he would have seen their mental signatures flare like beacons among the countless stars. In the same way, he knew he chased the last of the Nackthra. So much lost to the emptiness of oblivion, even the Nackthra had been capable of great beauty. Their lightning dances had been magnificent, the architecture of their orbital rings a true work of art.

  For over fifty thousand years, the Gena and Nackthra fought countless wars and broke even more truces. It no longer mattered who was right or wrong.

  Over two thousand years before, one war started when he fired on an enemy destroyer in a neutral zone. The destroyer’s violation of the treaty had been too blatant to ignore, and that war lasted for years until the Nackthra revealed the destroyer was responding to a distress call. The war resumed when the Gena discovered the Nackthra had lied about a scientific expedition needing help, but it had actually been a spy station.

  A hundred years later, peace again came to the warring races. A generation grew up not knowing the horror of war, and the young ones, seeking “glory,” started another. Shon’tar didn’t care to remember the details after so many wars and so many lives lost.

  More in control of his senses, Shon’tar returned to the one Nackthra mind he had been infiltrating for the last two hundred and forty years. Neuron by neuron, subconscious thought by subconscious thought, he almost controlled it. A long, tedious process only detectable if he moved too fast, so Shon’tar moved slower than a hungry moff stalking a fat fren grazing in a field. The enemy psychic aboard the Nackthra strike cruiser would prevent Shon’tar if he knew. As the shakes set in, Shon’tar gripped his chair and tried to will away the visions, but again his mind fell into the past, the echoes of his screams remained unanswered in the emptiness of his command center.

  ***

  “We can’t hold out much longer!” Ne’sea, his wife, said from the command chair of the Crying Child.

  “Full speed!” Shon’tar said to his navigator. “Full Speed! Fire on the Great Cruiser! All weapons on the Cruiser!”

  “Life!” replied the Gun Commander and Navigator Commander as one.

  The weapons of the Weeping Heart slashed the Nackthra cruiser, attacking the Crying Child with everything, but their target ignored their attacker.

  “Enemy main generator destroyed!” Trellna said. “They are losing power to weapons.”

  “Life,” acknowledged Shon’tar, looking at the main holoboard. He refused to consciously acknowledge the truth.

  “Our drives are down,” Ne’sea said, resignation in her voice. Shon’tar saw the Nackthra warship and his wife’s warstar drift toward each other. The weapons of the Weeping Heart continued to rip the cruiser apart, but not fast enough.

  “We avenge our own,” the Nackthra warleader transmitted to the Gena from his bridge. He sounded defiant and proud, but Shon’tar tasted his fear. His crippled ship gave him no choice.

  The Nackthra great cruiser smashed into the Crying Child and millions of Gena wailed. Their dying screams mixed with the cries of the Nackthra. They wanted to live, but everyone was bound to fight for their people.

  Ne’sea’s loss ripped his soul, leaving behind an emptiness in his heart that would never be filled. The Gena mated for life. He had known her for fifteen hundred years, and he had loved her with all his heart for longer. Now, in less than a second, Shon’tar would never hear or hold her again. Thousands of years was not enough to love her. Shon’tar and his daughter locked eyes, and for the first and last time, h
is crew saw tears betray him.

  Weapons powered by the minds of their gunners lashed out at the attacking Nackthra ships. Telepathic shields buckled underneath the assault of mind and technology. Countless died. The lucky ones didn’t have time to scream.

  The battle raged for days until the victorious Nackthra retreated. The star Nish-tai expanded as it became a nova, swelling to engulf the inhabitable planets in a sphere of blazing annihilation. No longer would Gena or Nackthra inhabit this system. Shon’tar gave the order and the surviving Gena ships headed to deep space to reinforce another battle taking place elsewhere. They had evacuated any civilians who lived in the system to the warstars or they were already dead, corpses in burned out cities.

  ***

  The shakes subsided, and Shon’tar lay back in his command chair. He should order the robots to take him to the sick bay for treatment. The nearest one was still pressurized and functional, but if he left the bridge, he would lose two hundred and forty years of work. The large specialized equipment could not be moved to him. His mental injuries, a result of the last mindblazer attack, needed the massive containment field. All the mental scars and injuries festered in his soul.. His unyielding determination kept his injured mind from interfering with his task, but he would need help. Only when the Nackthra were gone could he restore the Gena to their glory.

  The sick bay, or one of the many like it on the colossal warstar, would be the last hope of the Gena. With it, the Gena people could return. Gena DNA was stored in the armored heart of the warstar. Atom by atom, molecule by molecule, the Gena might be cloned and restored. Yet, he would need to be present to nurture the young and to help them develop their psychic abilities. In his shattered command center, he longed to hear the laughter of children. Happiness had its own healing power.