by T. L Smith
These towers were a magnet, drawing energy to them, drawing the psychic energy of my mind. I clamped down on the compulsion to give myself over to them, just as I learned to control Sharmila’s compulsions over me. I could do this. I had to do this, to understand our enemy.
So I drifted around the towers, turning myself into only a cloud of thought. In this form I sank through the stone walls and into the interior spiral. Inside, the light was not so mesmerizing. The song created by the wind between the spires was silenced. But the draw of energy still urged me downward.
Afraid to be pulled too quickly, too deeply into a place I could not see, I forced restraint onto myself. Like taking a calming breath, my mind looked beyond the wonder and realized the danger of what I was doing. I expected Sharmila to give me an ‘I told you so’ nudge, but she was silent, another reason for heightened apprehension. I couldn’t feel her presence.
I considered heeding this silent message, but I still needed answers. I needed to know what my army should do next. I clung tighter to the walls and slowly fell into the darkness. The air hummed with energy, radiating from somewhere below me. The lower I moved down the spire wall, the harder I fought my will’s ravenous urge to throw myself into the flame, to be consumed by the unity it offered.
I continued deeper and knew I’d gone far below the spires, below the towers. I had to be in some subterranean chamber, and still fell deeper, until I saw light inching into the darkness. I reached the top of a high arch, high above an immense hall. Like a mite who ventured onto the corner of a web, I sought a safe place to spy.
Below I saw Punitraq soldiers herding slaves, but these slaves didn’t bear the filth and harsh surroundings of their brothers on the first planet. These slaves moved stasis containers into formation in the center of a cathedral floor.
Instantly I knew the warships cycled containers back to their home world. Which meant we’d interrupted that flow. They’d move to restore it, which meant more ships were out there somewhere. Were they lurking somewhere in orbit? Had they headed off in some other direction, collecting slaves from other galaxies? Could they return any second and catch us off guard?
I needed to let my commanders know, but first I had to know the purpose of the captives. Tucked into the darkness, I watched slaves quickly hook up the complicated lines to pods. I focused my eyes on their fingers as they clawed in instructions, memorizing the order as they started revivals. This is what our techs needed to bring people we’d rescued back.
Inside the containers, there came a slow awakening, a growing awareness that quickly surged into panic. Panic of people whose last memories were terror. Intuition screamed at me to leave, but I couldn’t. The nightmares of these confused souls plastered my ghost to the ceiling.
Paralyzed, I watched the slaves slip away, as darkly cloaked shapes surged from beneath the massive arches. Like a black wave they flowed out over the sealed containers. The chamber became deathly silent, except for the muffled screaming inside the containers. The shadowy figures engulfed the containers and the captives’ screams suddenly merged with an intensely painful hunger. A hunger I could never imagine, a hunger from the dark entities.
I crept further down the curved arches, clinging to richly carved columns, drawn by the hunger, by morbid curiosity. Who were these cloaked beings? What were they doing? Every protective instinct warned me to not look beneath the cloaks, but I had to.
My thoughts went to one figure in particular. It was the first to claim a pod and didn’t share as the rest of them did. Choosing this individual meant only one soul to focus on, but also one of some special social standing. Possibly a leader.
It bent over the pod. Wispy arms extended over the container, arms long and fragile. Emaciated and weak, but as I watched it seemed the entity grew stronger. I’d have thought it my imagination, but as the energy beneath the cloak intensified, so did the screams within the pod. The captive screamed from excruciating pain, as if being ripped apart, alive.
I refused to believe what I was watching, even as the screams suddenly ceased. The figure released the container and I could see the captive inside lay drawn, mutilated, and dead. The dark entity had grown strong and radiated power, the life-force of its victim.
The shock shattered my control and I wanted to scream too. I wanted to escape, but before I broke contact, the dark entity cast off the cloak and turned to where I clung desperately to the inner chamber’s wall. She turned to look directly at me.
Ripped from the chamber wall, out of the towers and off their world, my whole consciousness screamed. I screamed at the terrorizing death I’d felt inside hundreds of containers. I screamed at the mind I’d touched for one split-second.
She was the core of evil.
Even when human hands grabbed at me, I couldn’t get the horror out of my head. I searched the eyes around me, looking for Everett, but he couldn’t help me.
I saw Gardner’s face. “Sync us! NOW!”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Sharmila wrapped barriers around me. The Elders swarmed me too, but the screams wouldn’t stop. I clung to the arms of the EH officers aiding me. Holding tight to my terror, to not project it onto them. A wave of disorientation shimmered through my concentration, my orders to Sync fulfilled.
After several minutes I let myself look upon those standing around me, at the EH holding me. They’d felt my distress and found me caught in this nightmare. I asked them to get me to my quarters, to the one place the crew would be safe when my controls completely shattered.
An advance guard cleared the corridors, but it was Gardner who half-carried me through my own ship. As soon as the doors closed behind us, I shook her off, going to the liquor stash and pouring a glass full of scotch. It burned, but barely distracted me from the truth of what I’d seen. I’d wanted answers, but this?
“They lied to us!” I glared into the air, at the glimmer of Elders. “You lied to us!”
I seethed, wanting to push every cell of Sharmila out of my body and brain. “The Punitraq aren’t the real enemy. The Elders are! This is where they came from.” I couldn’t contain it anymore, releasing the images locked in my brain.
Almost immediately alarms sounded. “Commander… Primary, the EH…something’s wrong.”
Gardner ran to my desk, activating my video link to the bridge. EH soldiers had fallen to their knees. “Are we under attack like before?” She turned to me. “Tell the Elders to protect them.” She came to me, shaking me as I stood there trembling under the images replaying in my head. “Primary… Kali…” She slapped me. “Snap out of it and protect your people!”
I couldn’t. Only one weapon could bring these huge strong men to their knees and I was that weapon. I let them witness the horror from within the chamber, the dark shadow-beings falling upon trapped victims, hunger roared louder than screams, the joy of feeding upon living energy. I showed them the face of the woman. Letting them see the true species we battled.
They were seeing the truth. I withheld nothing and collapsed too, completely drained. Linked to all the EH, I could only watch as they tried to collect themselves, strengthening their resistance against the companions, entities that seconds before they’d trusted so thoroughly. Were we to become slaves to the Elders? Would we face the same ultimate fate? Worse, would we evolve into them one day?
Sharmila denied nothing, nor the Elders. Weak from what I’d just endured, I could do nothing as a pool of energy formed, growing stronger and brighter. Gardner saw it too, stepping away from it. The Elders were taking a form to reveal themselves, wanting my attention. I waited, wondering what motive or explanation they intended to offer.
The mass grew, filling half the room, then condensing into a single shape. Arms and legs formed, a head, a man, but ethereal. I started to recognize the features. “Stop this! Don’t insult me by imitating…”
The figure of Carl held out a hand. “We…I am not an imitation.” He became more defined as he moved closer to me. “I told you I would
be here, to help if the time came. The Elders know the pain… the doubt you feel.” Carl’s hand extended to Gardner, and to the ship. Through me, reaching out to all the EH. “They meant no deceit, nor do they intend enslavement. They allowed me to return, to speak for them, to tell you what you want to know. What you must know.” Carl shifted back to me, bending close. He touched my forehead.
A kaleidoscope of images swirled into my brain, but it was Carl’s voice whispering to me, to us. “It is true, they are of us, but they are not… us. Through Carl, the Elders’ physical history was revealed, whether Sharmila willed it or not. The truth played out for us in intricate detail, facts previously glossed over, now over-exposed.
“In our last generations, we lived longer, but longevity stole away our fertility and we faced extinction before evolution, so we fought back. Many people made themselves available for DNA manipulations. Many died, suffering massive physical and psychological changes.”
I felt the EH everywhere cringe at the horrifying deaths being shown us. I saw Gardner stagger to a chair and collapse, the power of the Elders reached her as well. “Those who didn’t die developed violent behaviors. Their mutated DNA and psychoses were transmitted to their offspring. To protect the population, the Elders segregated them, but they escaped to Punitraq, an abandoned outpost world. The Elders let them go, believing in time they would die off.”
Carl nodded at the thought passing through my mind. “The Elders’ disregard for their own, returned to haunt them. The Punitraq didn’t die. They multiplied. They attacked and destroyed innocent allies. The Elders put aside attempts to save themselves. To protect the Collective, they rose up to rid the universe of their sin.”
In my head the Elders and Punitraq came face-to-face. The Elders had forgotten the ugliness of war. Their casualties were overwhelming. “Only by sheer numbers did they bring the Punitraq to their knees. But, against the opposition of Queen Sharmila, the survivors were granted a final mercy.”
“Queen? Sharmila was their queen…” I knew she was high ranked among the Elders, but a queen? “…and they wouldn’t listen to her?”
“Not on the issue of mercy, but they conceded to precautions, should the Punitraq ever rise again and resume aggressions. This part of the story you know. Of the many species tested, only humans could incorporate untainted Elder DNA.”
“Really, like one DNA fiasco hadn’t taught you not to screw with nature?”
“It was a necessary risk. Part of the compromise. Humanity was not as you are now and so many branches of your evolution had failed. Homo sapiens were on the verge of collapse. Dormant Elder DNA strengthened your line and brought it out of extinction.” The EH received the visions flowing through me, but Carl focused only upon me.
His eyes were tender as he told what remained of their story. “Queen Sharmila was the sole survivor of her bloodline. She surrendered her own evolution, but the process required a human subject. Humans were primitive and having saved many from near death, they saw us as Gods. Young women readily offered themselves up to be the receptacle of a Goddess.”
I watched the process from the Elders’ perspective. The science was beyond anything we understood, but it was as terrifying as what I’d just watched, only in reverse. I felt the core of her existence drain away, into a savage, emaciated girl.
In Sharmila’s last breaths of life, the Elders were left with the morbid task of segregating the remaining elements of their queen’s being. They extracted her physical, psychological and genetic memories. A portion was blended into that of her new progeny, the rest injected into the Orb’s core.
The young girl grew strong and led her clan out of extinction, out of their small wilderness. Out into the world to spread the seeds of Elders throughout humanity. The shell of Sharmila’s body was buried beneath a primitive temple, lost in time. The Elders remained long enough to assure their progeny survived, then moved on to their next existence.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the desperation necessary to have every essence of my being torn into nothing more than elements and data. I just couldn’t fathom it.
“She surrendered her life because she knew down to her soul what the rest of us refused to believe. That the Punitraq would return.” Carl dropped his eyes.
The full memory touched, but conflicted me. “What of that human girl? Her soul, her life? She wasn’t her own being anymore.” I thought of Carl, assuming the body of someone already dying, then the Elders taking him back, against his will.
Sharmila stirred at my revulsion. “She lived on as a leader, as a teacher, as her own person, proud of the seeds she carried. Humans would not exist, except for her, and her tribe. She was the Eve in so many religions.”
“And you? You were her Adam? Sacrificing yourself too?”
“In time. One last safeguard. But not in the same manner. My soul had already started to evolve to this. I simply delayed the inevitable. And only when the soul of the host was already departing. So that the Queen’s sacrifice would not be lost.”
Her sacrifice. I choked on the agony I knew she suffered. A suffering she hadn’t allowed anyone else to go through. I knew now why she never revealed this truth. She’d protected me. But there was nothing blocking those memories now. She felt every part of her dissolution. I felt it all too real. Almost as if I too were being taken apart cell by cell.
Carl’s arms wrapped around me, as he had done so often in real life. I was protected from her death and suddenly felt guilty for her loss. But it was more than my own sense of guilt. I could feel the EH understanding the harsh efforts the Elders went to. Efforts to fix their errors and safeguard our futures, even though they would be long evolved and unaffected by reinvasion.
If anyone could, the EH understood the loss of one, for the salvation of many. They wanted to believe the Elder’s motives for withholding this history. I looked up at Carl. “We want to trust you, but how do we know we can? How do we know you will leave us free when this war is done?”
Carl looked at me for a moment, a little confused, before he smiled. “I will show you.”
In an instant I was no longer aboard the ship, but out in the universe with the Elders, part of their shimmering energy, dancing among the stars, swirling in an existence so grand and immense that I was swallowed up, absorbed and starting to swirl joyfully in the music vibrating through every cell. We were the energy holding the universe together.
“Feel this. The Elders souls are free. We see and touch life in ways mortals can’t ever achieve. Not until their existence on the mortal plane is completed. This is where we find our joy. When this war is done, and our children are safe, we will continue our journey.”
Abruptly I was back in my quarters. “Queen Sharmila will release you too. As an additional safeguard her elements have a limited life once introduced to living tissue. She will serve you now, but eventually fade away completely.” His hand went from my head to my chest, touching me softly. “You have grown much stronger than she, because of your human heart.”
I looked down to where his hand rested on my chest, feeling his touch deep inside. I tried to cover his hand with mine, but what felt like a real touch was only the transmission of energy between us. He wasn’t real, and my heart didn’t beat for him anymore. It beat for Everett.
Carl eased his hand from mine, reaching up to my face again, making me look at him. He spoke softly, to me alone. “I knew you loved me, but he is your true love, your bonded lifemate. Give up your old pain and tell him. Mortal life is too short.”
This was the real Carl, not just a phantom created by the Elders. He smiled as he slipped away from me. Returning to the center of the room, speaking to all EH. “You will not evolve into those beasts. While you were of us, you were of humans too. Now you will be only yourselves.”
His last words faded and his energy was released, returning to the universe. Our anger and fears faded away, but relief was short-lived. Alarms jolted us all from this communion.
A stre
am of lights flashed around the perimeter of my room. A voice cut into the urgent high-pitched buzz. “Commander Gardner. Primary. The second planet launched ships. Analyzing to determine their composition. Please report to the Bridge.”
“On our way!” I turned to Gardner. “They might be alerted to our presence, but we already know they can’t catch us, or stand up to us when we face them. So let’s take them for a bit of a chase.”
Gardner grinned. “Give them a surprise when we finally turn on them?”
“It will give us time to plan our approach dirtside, now that we know the real threat.” I stepped aside to walk with her to the bridge. “Consider one thing as we work up these plans. Total annihilation is off the table. We can’t allow the slave population to become casualties.”
“As much as it can be avoided, Primary.” Gardner agreed with me, though we both knew there would be many deaths before this war even started to be won.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
From the bridge we watched broadcasts from surveillance drones still circling the planet. The Punitraq had launched ships, but while I’d revealed myself to that woman, she didn’t know where I’d come from, or gone. We watched their search, then shift direction as they found our energy trail. As hoped, they went into FTL, in pursuit.
My thoughts went back to the woman, a hybrid Elder. She was the real Punitraq. She was their queen and she was coming after me. A few hours ago, I’d have been frightened, but now I’d gained a firmer resolve. I would end her reign of terror.
We led their fleet away, leaving the rest of my fleet to move in closer, watching for a larger response, preparing for a full on assault. I waited as Gardner took their fleet for a ride. This first wave was eight ships of varying sizes and configurations, but there’d be more. Even the best forces needed time for a full response. So did we.
