Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “Liza?” Danny called softly. He genuinely seemed to care, and she wanted so badly to go with him to Elysia.

  “I’m still here,” she murmured, pounding her fist against the sand. Kerris?

  “I’m doing what I can,” Hawk replied. He could hear her, but they couldn’t speak privately. She felt Hawk’s arms around Kerris, and shared in that comfort.

  She felt the fire of Sky’s presence behind her, as the woman rocked Honor in her arms. “It’s just a memory. Bad memory. I’m here,” Sky whispered, her words doing little to soothe Honor’s turmoil. The crowd was getting difficult to manage.

  Turning her hand, Liza found a memory to conjure. The meat hook and rope that Tray had hung from for three days. She swung the metal hook through the air, making the Nelka men duck. A drone fired at the hook, knocking it off course. Another one fired at her feet, the energy pulse burning through her shoes.

  She turned her hand again and found the pistol from Saskia’s memory. Her breath caught in her throat. She’d been accused of being a killer and a war machine, but firing a weapon at someone was a bit more personal. She raised the gun, but a drone shot her wrist and the weapon fell to the ground.

  “Where did you get that?” Saskia gasped, scooping up the pistol.

  “From your memory,” Liza replied, shuddering at the rise in Saskia’s panic level.

  “You’ve proven you can call items from the oblivion,” Kraven smirked, squatting in front of Liza, pinching her chin to raise it. “You want to do this, don’t you? You want to bring them back.”

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, smacking his hand. Liza ran her fingers through the dust again. She’d thought the Nelka had come to fulfill a vendetta—like when the Gavameti set her on fire. Kraven wanted her to use her power for good, not evil.

  Kerris, what do I do? She looked to her brother, but because of her, he couldn’t see her.

  Tell them you lied, Kerris replied. If you’re not sure you can do it, then don’t.

  If I do nothing, they will hurt you. She shared that thought with Hawk and Kerris, hoping one of them would have an answer, but all she sensed was fear and uncertainty.

  Concentrating her energy, she dug her shadowy talons into the physical earth, turning the realm. She reached back into the memory of Boone’s destruction, searching for the strength to trigger the turn, and the control she needed not to turn everyone who was here to the other side.

  “Kraven, she said she’s not sure,” Danny continued. “Don’t force her to do this before she’s ready.”

  Liza’s fingers gripped a body from the other side and she pulled, but soon lost the weight. It didn’t take shape like a memory, because it wasn’t one. All that came through was a hand. A disembodied, desiccated hand. The skin appeared flash frozen, the fingers inflated, but the longer she held it, the more it disintegrated into an ash-gray pile of dust. The whole episode seemed too short for her captors to notice.

  “I can’t bring them back,” she gasped, the impact of the realization taking her breath away.

  “Count your toes, Liza,” Kerris said, sitting up on his gurney, his glassy eyes aimed at her, attempting to impart comfort despite his pain. “It was only your first attempt.”

  Liza tried again, this time grabbing for a torso, but by the time she pulled it through, all she had was an unidentifiable husk of meat.

  “You’ve been to that realm, Kerris. You know a normal human couldn’t survive,” Danny begged.

  “Sky, show me again,” Liza pleaded.

  Sky backed away, shaking her head. “Liza, there’s nothing I can show you. There’s nothing you can do.”

  The ground rumbled beneath them, and Liza looked at her brother. “I killed them. Kerris, I didn’t mean to kill them.”

  “Try again,” Dex demanded, snatching the pistol from Saskia. “You brought this from a memory. A memory!”

  Dex fired and Liza slipped into the other realm, feeling the heat of the bullet passing through her. Quickly, she converted to her spirit form and took refuge in Kraven.

  “Where is she?” Dex demanded, swinging his weapon to take aim at Kerris. “Bring her back!”

  “I can’t,” Kerris said. Dex shot, but Kerris anticipated the move and deflected the air so that the bullet lost momentum and hit him with the force of a fly hitting a wall. The wind vortex in its wake didn’t block the second bullet, and that one, though it veered away from his heart, penetrated Kerris’ shoulder.

  “Take cover!” Danny shouted, ducking behind one of the droids.

  “Kerris!” Liza cried, diving for her brother. She barely got her hands on the wound before Dex dragged her off.

  “Let me heal him!” Liza begged.

  “If you want to heal him, then you will try again,” Dex ordered. “Try! There are plenty who vanished here at your hand.”

  “They’re dead. They’re dead!” Liza shrieked, kicking to get free. She wasn’t in chains anymore, but that didn’t make her strong. She could feel Kerris’ heart pounding as blood poured from his wound.

  “Do you want more to die because of you?” Dex threatened, pointing his weapon at Sky.

  “Don’t listen to him, Liza,” Sky said calmly, aiming her grav-gun at Dex. “He has the pistol. He’s responsible for who he kills with it. Not you.”

  “You want them back!” Liza cried. “Here! Have them!”

  She reached out her hands and turned the realms again. She wasn’t concerned about being gentle, now that she knew there was no life to preserve, and no danger of the Praet and Xentu starting a new war. Dead bodies appeared on the street and fell from rooftops and windows. The city seemed to explode with bone shrapnel and the stench of ash. This was the death she’d kept herself from seeing as a child. The destruction had always been there, and now everyone could see it.

  Sky threw her body to the ground, covering her head, succumbing to the feel of fire that she knew to be Spirit’s protection. Hawk often talked of a glow on her skin when Spirit was active, and Sky had felt that fire growing stronger since Liza had injured Hawk’s eyes.

  The ground moved beneath her, throwing Sky into the air. Her body impacted the wall of a building, and she slumped down amidst a pile of desiccated flesh. The stone Hawk had carved as Brandon’s epitaph lay just within sight. Sky’s throat tightened, thinking one of these bodies might be his. She squinted through the dust and ash, expecting to feel a sting in her eyes, and realized none of the upturned destruction had reached her face.

  Spirit, you have to stop her! She didn’t expect Spirit to respond. Liza wasn’t a ghost right now; she was a sad, angry girl who had just realized her plan to redeem herself had failed.

  Sky fired her grav-gun at Liza, but the pulse barely seemed to move the girl. Her body faded and for a moment, Sky could see right through her, but then she glared at Sky and brought up her hand. A grav-gun appeared, and she shot back at Sky with a force strong enough to knock a normal person unconscious.

  The sound of the bell chimes was overwrought by the noise of the drone strike. Sky hid among the droids, but that turned out to be a bad idea, because they were the prime target. The blast ripped hunks of flesh from her arm.

  “What’s your name?” an older woman asked, dragging Sky into the bell tower, taking her to a vestibule on the lower level that had been set up for triage. Sky whimpered, not sure what to say. Just three years ago, she’d run from home to save her family from Spirit. As her consciousness waned, she felt its claws closing around her neck.

  “You were hit during an air strike. What were you doing on the droid roads?” the woman asked. “Can you hear me? Can you understand?”

  “She’s in shock,” another woman said. They laid Sky on a bed, and Sky kicked to get free. She did not want to pass out.

  “I don’t recognize you. Are you Praet?” the second woman asked. “She’s prime age to have been radicalized.”

  “She didn’t bring the strike,” the first one argued.

  “Aurelia. That’s my name. �
�Relia,” Sky whispered, reaching for the hand of the first woman. The sight of her mangled arm made her swoon, but then the kind woman administered a painkiller.

  “Nice to meet you, miss Rey-lee,” the woman said, butchering the name as all strangers seemed wont to do. “Do you have a surname? I can locate your family.”

  “They’re dead. They’re all dead. And it’s my fault,” Sky cried. The kind woman hugged her.

  “It’s not your fault, Rey-lee,” she assured. “You’re a survivor. I’ll be your family for now. I’ll be your family.”

  “Breathe, Sky, breathe!” Honor cried, her lips pressing to Sky’s as she forced air into Sky’s lungs. Sky gasped and gagged, tears in her eyes. The more bodies Liza brought back, the more it hit home. There were no survivors tucked away. The city that had loved her unconditionally was dead.

  37

  Hawk keened, feeling pain in his eyes as though Liza were piercing through them again. His red, fuzzy vision quickly became overwhelmed with chaos. He wasn’t having visions of the other realm; the other realm had come here!

  Liza screamed louder than anyone else, fueled by incredible pain, sadness, and loss. Kerris was in physical pain. Sky wept. The others were in panic. More drones took to the air, adding a low-level buzz to Liza’s screams, attacking the bones that appeared. Some of the droids came to life as well. Fewer than Hawk thought would have, but he realized most of the droids only moved because he’d willed it.

  Keeping his body folded over Kerris’, Hawk heard Dex shouting demands at someone. He’d stopped following the Lanvarian conversation a while ago, focusing instead on Kerris, trying to shield him enough to keep the city from crumbling. Dex had the pistol.

  Fire, Hawk thought. The weapon went off, and Dex dropped it, kicking it away.

  Hawk dove for the weapon, but the drone guarding him fired an energy beam that numbed his feet.

  Liza? He didn’t know how to send words, so he imagined himself firing the pistol, hoping the impression carried.

  Liza whipped around, her eyes wide. Then her face scrunched and she screeched in pain.

  “Liza, I can end this. I can,” Hawk called desperately.

  She threw her arms out, screeching from emotional pain, but his message must have gotten through. She’d teleported him back to the house—back to her bedroom. There was a corpse on the bed, with the skin dried, frozen, and black. It was small, though, like it belonged to a child, taken during a mid-day nap, moved to the other realm where it died.

  “Myung,” Hawk whispered, his eyes watering. He knelt next to the bed and saw Liza’s worry beads. Then he found a flask, a hook, a pistol, and several other things that had fallen from the memories she gleaned. Hawk took them all and climbed out the window, running full speed for drone control. He couldn’t let Kerris and Liza return to this; this wasn’t home anymore. He had to deactivate the drones. The technology existed to track hybrids, and if this was what it would be used for, then he would never let it leave the city.

  The bone shards filled the air with fine dust, creating microsplinters on Danny’s hands. He and Saskia knelt over Kerris. Saskia put pressure on the man’s wounded shoulder, and Danny held his hand, whispering prayers, sensing that he didn’t have long to live.

  “Stop, girl! You can stop now!” Dex hollered, horrified by the bodies that Liza summoned from the other realm. When Liza disappeared again, they all let out a breath of relief. All except Kerris, who stopped breathing. Then Liza took him, too, and he blinked out of existence. The destroyers had escaped.

  The Nelka warriors seemed as shocked as Danny by the silence.

  “Are you hurt?” Danny asked, rushing over to Sky.

  Sky lay on her side, cradling a stone carved with Brandon’s name. “I’ll live. Hawk?”

  “Teleported somewhere. Come on,” Danny said, hooking under her shoulders, bringing her to her feet. “Let’s get back to Quin. When we’ve recovered from the shock, we can give these people a proper burial.”

  “Kraven? Kraven!” Sky cried, breaking out of Danny’s grip, tottering toward the mourning Nelka.

  “We failed,” Kraven said. He knelt next to a body—one of the few that had enough substance left to appear human. Most were bone fragments, not full skeletons.

  “Kraven, she didn’t kill them just now. They died a long time ago,” Sky said, cradling the epitaph stone in one arm, and wrapping her other around his shoulders.

  “We can help you rebuild the city,” Danny offered, approaching respectfully. “But I have crew that is injured and ill, and I have to get them home first.”

  “We failed to kill the destroyers. They’re still out there,” Dex said bitterly, kicking at the debris, anger surging.

  “But we can track them,” Kraven said, catching his arm, forcing Dex to show respect. “The technology here—it seeks them out.”

  “Why would you hunt them?” Danny asked. “They don’t want to hurt you. Liza thought she could bring these people back! She tried. You know, she tried.”

  “We wouldn’t hunt them,” Kraven said quietly, exchanging a look with Dex. “We will spread this technology, so everyone will know to shun them. The endemics will not find refuge among out kind again.”

  Hawk dashed for drone control, nearly plowing into a police droid that moved to intercept. The droid rose to six feet in height and a panel opened on its side. As the mechanical arm extended, Hawk tensed and imagined the joint jamming. It worked. He couldn’t see with his spirit eyes, but he still had his abilities, as long as he stuck to the obvious mechanisms. Sidling past the droid, Hawk shouldered his way through the door and slammed it behind him, crying and aching, sinking to the floor.

  “Hawk!” Tray hollered.

  Hawk scrambled, then fell anyway when he recognized his friend’s voice.

  “Are you hurt?” Tray asked, his hand touching Hawk’s cheek. The Bara leaf had done wonders to help the pain and swelling, but his skin was raw.

  “Shut down the drones,” Hawk panted, pushing Tray toward the nearest control panel. The screens looked dark, and Hawk’s vision was blurring with every breath. “Shut down the—please.”

  “I’m working on it,” Tray assured, petting his hair.

  A Nelka appeared behind Tray, saying something in Lanvarian. Hawk fumbled his pistol, moving to defend Tray, but then falling on him.

  “Hawk, she’s a friend. She’s helping,” Tray said, putting a steadying hand on Hawk’s wrist, pushing the pistol down.

  “That’s what the other one said,” Hawk whimpered. “They turned the drones against me. They made Liza—they made her…”

  “We saw something strange on the monitors, then everything cut out,” Tray explained. “What’s going on out there?”

  “She brought back the dead. But they were dead.” Hawk’s body pulsed, remembering the feel of each corpse being ripped from the other realm. “I have to destroy them. Destroy the machines.”

  “We’re going to shut down the machines and let this city get properly looted by humans,” Tray agreed.

  Hawk felt a sting of judgment in that last word. He didn’t feel like a human anymore, and he was starting to understand Kerris’ desire to become one. His eyes ached anew and he rubbed his face. “Tray… why are you here? Are you with them?”

  “Liza brought us here,” Tray said.

  “Liza?” Hawk said, sitting up. “She kidnapped you, too?”

  “Look at me, Hawk,” Tray said urgently.

  “I can’t!” Hawk cried. “She took my eyes. I can’t see anything anymore.”

  “Your eyes are still in your head,” Tray smirked, thumbing Hawk’s cheek gently. “They look a little red, but we have doctors for that.”

  “Have to destroy…”

  “Okay. Calm down,” Tray said, standing up. “Madricka and I will figure it out soon.”

  “I hear buzzing,” Hawk murmured. “Drones. They found me! They found me!”

  “Where are they coming from? How did they get in?” Madricka c
ried.

  Hawk’s hand shook and he felt the weight of the pistol in his hand as he sought out the drone. The gun went off, the force of the recoil burning Hawk’s fingers, the bullet ricocheting off the floor. Hawk cringed. He’d thought about firing the gun, but he hadn’t meant to make it happen.

  “Shut it down, Tray! Shut it down!” Hawk begged, afraid to raise the pistol. When Liza had done so, the drone fired at her hand. Madricka shot first, firing a Nelka stunner at the drone, but the drone deflected the energy blast toward one of the monitors, and the screen imploded, scorching the wall around it.

  “The stunner won’t work on them,” Hawk realized. “Just talk to the AI. It won’t listen to hybrids. Talk to it, Tray.”

  “There! Two more!” Madricka cried, pointing to another drone, then hurrying over to help Tray. “AI, tell the drones to cease fire.”

  “Threat detected,” the AI replied.

  Hawk fired and the drone fired back, hitting Hawk’s shoulder. Hawk dropped to his knees. He fired again, hitting the rotor of the drone, finally bringing it down. There was a second one, and Hawk let loose a spray of bullets. One would hit.

  “Hawk, careful!” Tray cried, diving for cover. A bullet bounced off one of the screens and Tray fell to the ground.

  Hawk’s body went numb. He’d just shot his friend!

  38

  Hawk dropped the gun, but it still felt as though the metal were burning a hole in his hand. Tray’s body trembled, his glassy eyes roving to and fro as he alternately searched for danger and lost all sense of the world. The buzzing in Hawk’s ears grew louder as the number of drones increased.

  “Hybrid! Drones, contain him!” Madricka shouted, crawling on her elbows to get to Tray. She made a tourniquet for her leg from her stripped clothing, but blood leaked from her thigh, and she had smaller wounds on her arms and legs. They’d both been caught in his reckless crossfire.