The Dry Earth (Book 2): The Nexus

by Orion, W. J.

  In his energy-based perception of the universe, Trader Joe saw exactly that.

  My name is Trader Joe, he said telepathically to the entity inside the floating death machine. What do you call yourself?

  Your energy is… not organic. You are mechanical?

  I am your grim reaper, crab, and I would have your name before harvesting all the tiny souls floating around inside that vessel you pilot.

  Whatever you are, you shall share the same fate as the ground walkers you assist. Now, bring me those who defy the Empire and let us stop wasting precious time I could be using to hunt something that I can eat.

  You will die to a child in a few moments, Trader Joe said. A youngling, a hatchling, an adolescent–whatever word you choose. She will be your end. She will have some help, yes, but this girl will hunt you and make the universe a better place by removing you from it. She will force your Empire to make peace, and you will abide that peace. She is the kind of person who rallies nations and worlds. Millions will march behind her to whatever end. I wish I could show you this, but you won’t be here to see it.

  Your threats are as synthetic as the weak body you have, it said to him, half as a laugh.

  Your transgressions will bring my people out of exile. You know that, don’t you?

  The hovering machine of war flared its weapons and slid backwards ever so slightly–just enough for Trader Joe to see, just enough to tell him the monster still feared the Beru’dawn. Trader Joe slapped his gloved hands together and rubbed them with confident glee.

  Yes, that’s right, you vindictive little snot, hiding inside an armored shell designed to subjugate those who deserve a better life than the one you allow them to have. My people will return from the depths of space to set this right, to help remove the stain you are from the universe and free all life from the yoke your tyranny has put on them, and we will stand beside them until the threat you pose is eliminated.

  The weapons on the hovertank flared to life as the barrels fixed on his chest. Trader Joe watched as the energy slid down the arms of the monster to the crystals and mechanisms that would multiply its power a hundredfold.

  My kind no longer fear you the way we did. Your infection has been cured, it said as the weapons flared larger, readying four blasts powerful enough to incinerate Trader Joe’s adopted body.

  Ready? Trader Joe asked Trey and Yasmine.

  We’re at the door, Yasmine returned.

  Trader Joe spread his arms wide, baring his slender chest to the entity threatening to incinerate him.

  “It is time for the child,” he said out loud, and the crab fired all of his weapons into him.

  Chapter Forty

  Mentioned Earlier That the Enemy Gets a Vote, Right?

  The four cannons boomed like thunderclaps tearing at the manufactured sky in the market. Blue flashes of crab plasma tore through and completely incinerated Trader Joe’s body, leaving nothing behind but a shower of stones falling into a crater.

  Yasmine watched the explosive moment, and with the senses Trader Joe gifted her, she saw his energy—his very being—jump from the body like an exorcised ghost and snap straight back to her and Trey. Trader Joe’s visible form was an amorphous, golden, sparkling light that darted and danced to her. His essence flew straight towards her stomach and burrowed into the Galon shield unit there. In a second, he had assumed a new physical repository.

  Spacious. I am ready.

  “Yeehaw!” she screamed, and Trey leapt out of the restaurant’s doorway and into the market’s stone street.

  He turned and sprinted at the hovering monster as fast as his chassis could take them. Yasmine held firm as best she could with her left hand as she drew her pistol with her right. They’d be at the crater then right up under their adversary’s chin in a few seconds.

  Yasmine risked letting go with her spare hand and slapped the shield generator hard on the surface, triggering the red umbrella of transparent energy that would absorb the tank’s weapon fire. It hovered in front of them, bouncing up and down like an umbrella held at arm’s length as her body lurched on Trey’s back.

  “Joe, can you steer that shield?” she asked her friend.

  The shield came to life, sliding left and right, adjusting to match the movements of the crab hovertank they charged at.

  Got it, Trader Joe said.

  Yasmine aimed her pistol through the crimson Galon shield, at the smooth forward head portion of the tank, and rolled the dice on whether or not any of her shots would go astray and miss. She snapped off three shots as fast as she could pull the trigger. The shots felt like they came out slow due to the stolen Trader Joe ability to dilate the effects of time inside her mind, and that gave her a steady hand despite the violent motion of Trey running beneath her. The special bullets smacked against the crab armor and exploded in their signature green eruption. As the tank snapped backwards, recoiling from the strange hits, the acid effect of the munitions kicked in and began to eat away at the smooth outer layer into the thick underpinnings of the armor.

  On cue, the rest of the group started to lay into the levitating crab tank with everything they had. A horizontal rain of human bullets and Galon projectiles hurled across the battlefield, pummeling the front of the tank. The fire impacted at the acid holes, burrowing deep, rocking the tank backwards and putting it on its heels.

  “Trey, smash it with your laser and get its attention!” Yasmine hollered.

  Trey let a wild blast from his mining laser free. The shot skipped off the top of the smooth surface near the acid scorches, hitting the distant dome far above. Trey’s hit did no damage to the tank other than pushing it sideways. He kept galloping toward the rocked tank, closing the gap to enable a killing blow.

  One of the plasma cannon arms snapped straight at them and fired off a calamitous burst of plasma. Yasmine flinched as the energy collided with their red shield, showering light and sparks in every direction, ruining their ability to see for a second. The shield, however, held up, and absorbed the hit.

  In her mind’s eye, with Trader Joe’s senses, she felt the shield battery on her belly growing plump with power: just a couple more shots absorbed and she’d be able to dump the shield battery and fuel another one of Trey’s titanic laser blasts. She snapped off a couple more of Trader Joe’s special bullets through their shield and into the pockmarked face of the bizarre crab contraption. The impact sites exploded and began to hiss out the acidic damage within seconds. They were just thirty yards away now, plenty close enough for Trey not to miss.

  Rocked by the volume of incoming fire from the humans and the Galon, the tank drifted backwards slowly, withdrawing from the battle several yards towards the forest, but then it halted. It lifted several feet higher up, and all four guns locked onto their position.

  Trey slowed and Yasmine felt Trader Joe hesitate. Time seized up in Yasmine’s mind, slower than it had ever moved.

  The tank pulsed out an actinic wave of its disruptive, dark radiation, and when the charred wave of poisonous energy hit them, the Galon shield flickered and shorted out. The red barrier between them and the four cannons disappeared.

  Yasmine… Trader Joe whispered in her mind. It sounded like an apology.

  Then everything went white.

  Chapter Forty-One

  No

  Two of the four plasma charges struck Trey with the force of a crashing car and the power of a missile. One hit him in the sensor array and tentacle mass of his face while the other smashed into the upper portion of his “head” near where Yasmine sat. She heard him scream out in pain as the inside of his chassis was shredded and melted by the high-intensity weapons. His fear and pain played out in palpable, visual slow motion for her. Somehow, he didn’t explode.

  In the next instant the other two plasma bolts hit Yasmine front and center, directly in the abdomen where the Galon shield generator and her friend Trader Joe were.

  She heard Trader Joe emit some kind of noise as she was hit; a defiant yell at th
e stars, maybe; a cry for help that couldn’t come, perhaps; but whatever he tried to say, the message came from a place of agony. His golden, sparkling essence wasn’t ruined by the blast; instead he became unseated from the shield generator—torn away like a soul vacating a body—and was ripped apart, then propelled into her physical body.

  Trader Joe’s gift to her, whether he planned or not, was to provide her with a tiny bit of shielding to try and save her life.

  Even with Trader Joe’s spirit covering her with a barrier of energy and filling her with a natural resistance, she was flung backwards off of Trey like garbage blowing out of the back of a pickup truck. The heat and sheer intensity of the plasma torched her clothing and skin, rending her with a thousand burns and cuts that lit her mind with the fires of pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

  But there she was, falling through the air, smashing into the hard stone surface of the market boulevard, burned, hurt badly, and barely alive. She’d taken two direct hits to the torso from plasma cannons and though she was gravely injured—mauled, possibly never to be the same again—she had survived. The grim reaper was kept at bay for a moment, at least.

  After crashing down on her back, the stones did her drowning pain no favors. She went still. She had to. Her tank had run dry. Pain overwhelmed her from the wounds. Under it all, the bizarre, almost out-of-body, sensation of having had Trader Joe’s entire physical presence blasted into her and through her left her energized. Remnants of his energy—like lightning strikes in her mind—coursed through her, making her whole body twitch and spasm.

  At least my muscles can work. Even if I don’t want them to.

  A twitch sent her head to the side. On the flat stones just a few feet away she saw her mother’s cell phone. It must’ve fallen out of her pocket. It looked so… fragile there, with its black case and cracked screen. It looked like it still worked, and that was comforting. The memories inside it….

  I have to get it back.

  The market went silent for a moment as she stared up at the gentle curve of the massive domed ceiling. The diffused white light drifted down from the synthetic sun emitters hanging from the high ceiling, landing on her skin like snowflakes. Even that tiny, invisible sensation seemed to make her hurt, but the beauty of the sight, and the faint memories of being a baby in her mother’s arms during a winter before the war, kept her lucid.

  Trader Joe? Joe? Are you there? she asked into the void where his mind used to be. On her belly where the destroyed shield emitter had been, she sensed a lack of his presence. She already knew where Joe was. Where Joe went.

  He was gone. It wouldn’t be a waste, but she fought the tears. Trey? Trey can you hear me?

  I… I can hear you. My suit is inoperable. Tons of damage. I’m a sitting duck. How are you alive? I mean, I’m glad you’re here, sorry. Where’s Trader Joe?

  Tears welled up and ran down her temples into her hair. Some wars can’t be won, nor should they.

  Yaz?

  He’s gone, Trey.

  Oh. Damn. That thing is coming. I guess… I guess this is the end. Maybe the others will win the war. I’m so sorry, Yaz. I believed. I believed in us. I thought we could do it.

  Yasmine continued to cry, and the tiny sobs tore at her stomach like someone was poking her with a hot knife.

  Wait, Trey said. If Trader Joe is gone… how are we still talking?

  Yasmine felt an air-shaking vibration course through the ground, then against her burnt and ravaged stomach. Her vision shook as whatever engines or technology allowing the crab vehicle to hover grew closer. The fear of being flattened or burnt to a crisp flooded her compromised mind. A dark shape filled the air above her, drowning out her snow.

  More rebellious meat for the pile, the thing inside the tank muttered, and Yasmine heard it. Why is it that so many species make their pathetic stands in the face of overwhelming strength and power? Acquiesce, and enjoy a painless life in servitude–or a fast death–as we decree. Idiots.

  Bullets and Galon projectiles pinged and banged on the side of the floating squid-machine, but the pilot inside it paid the incoming fire no mind. The thing inside it had won the battle. It drifted around Yaz in a circle, surveying the scene like a lion in the savannah searching the vicinity of a fresh kill for hyenas daring to take the meal. It lifted one plasma cannon and fired a shot at the restaurant, silencing her friends. They began firing again after a few seconds, and Yasmine felt a flood of relief.

  They’re still alive.

  Petty creatures holding a grudge, it continued, not hearing her. But not petty or creatures for much longer. Your precious planet will be gone soon enough, and all our sport hunters and curio collectors will just have to find another world to pick over.

  The pain in Yasmine’s body blinked out, replaced by rage. What did you just say?

  Ah, from the depths where all things rot, the child-creature floats her carcass up and speaks.

  What did you just say? My planet will be gone?

  Indeed. I have dispatched the message to eradicate your entire solar system. Your people will be an example to the others that are counting their last trips around their suns.

  The seething, raging fury building in her popped larger with the sound of each bullet smacking off the side of the tank hovering above. Each spasm of Trader Joe’s energy triggered waves of anger that felt like literal bursts of lightning running up and down her nerves. And that felt like power. Familiar power. Golden light, glittering with the fingerprint of the Beru’dawn. It wasn’t quite enough power, but….

  I have friends there. I have family there.

  Not for much longer. I must be away, you see. You have dying to do, and I must see to it that everyone else on the Nexus joins you in that regard. Just above her head, the plasma cannon nearest to her flared to life, and she watched with a dead creature’s senses as the power coursed down the limb to the weapon’s energy chamber. The cylinder aimed directly at her face, and she watched the ball of super-heated power grow just feet away.

  She felt the strange energy grow within her breast and belly. It reacted to the presence of the plasma nearby like iron near a magnet. She willed it up and down in the same way she might move her arm or foot. She sensed the presence of that power with the senses Trader Joe gave her, and she realized what had happened.

  He’s not dead. Not really dead. He… he’s with me. I absorbed him, just like those plasma blasts. What he was is no longer, and what I was….

  Quit your rambling. It’s time to die, the crab said. The cannon’s power reached its zenith.

  “No,” she said aloud, and she lifted a hand with all the strength she had and placed her palm against the end of the barrel.

  The alien weapon discharged and Yasmine caught it. With her bare, burnt hands, she caught it. Without really even realizing how to do it, her defiance formed some kind of barrier out of what was left of Trader Joe’s power inside her, and using that remnant of him, she absorbed and stored the blast into her body without dying or suffering any conscious pain.

  In fact, the pain she’d been suffering dissipated as if the energy she’d siphoned out of the air mended her flesh on the spot. Yasmine felt… invigorated. Empowered. Euphoric even. She felt….

  Like a whole new woman.

  Yasmine turned her flat palm and grabbed the white-hot barrel of the plasma cannon as if it were a branch on a dead tree. She grunted in anger and power and physically shoved the floating vehicle above her away like it was a piece of trash adrift on the water of a world that hadn’t been wrecked by crabs. The hovertank turned sideways as it nearly spun in a circle from her violent push. She sprung to her feet, ignoring the fresh pain that movement brought on.

  “No, damn it. You’re not killing my friends. You’re not killing me, either. Not today, not tomorrow, NOT EVER!” she screamed, and aimed that same palm at the front of the tank where her acidic Trader Joe pistol rounds had eaten away at the armor. Inside her core, her belly where the shield generator
had been destroyed, she released the equally white-hot power she’d taken, and the same shot that the crab had tried to kill her with erupted from her hand, smashing into the face of the monstrous enemy where it was weakest.

  The blast pierced into the tank, triggering an explosion that tossed her up into the air like she was debris caught in a tornado. Yasmine smashed into the grassy field and started to lose consciousness as pieces of the experimental vehicle crashed down all around her.

  You will not destroy Shant. You will not hurt the Monoliths. You will NOT hurt Kim. You will NOT hurt Brent. You will NOT hurt Owen. You will NOT hurt Liam. You will NOT hurt…

  You will not hurt Hope.

  The snow of the sunlight fell on her face; it felt good, and she let that feeling soak in. She fell asleep just as her broken uncle reached her, screaming and crying for her to be okay.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  She Is the Storm

  Caleb sat in a chair made for a species that sat in chairs somewhat like the ones back on Earth. It was comfortable enough. He hummed songs to Yasmine to pass the time. Beside him his niece laid in a medical bed that would’ve kept any number of species comfortable. Other than a red and blue scarf Bernie had knit for her resting on her arm, Yaz’s body was covered with translucent, pliable bandages that glowed with medicinal light. She slept in perfect comfort.

  Slept wasn’t the right word. Coma was the right word.

  Caleb had never felt weaker than the moment he had gotten to her in the market. A man who’d spent his professional life rescuing people from harm, kneeling over his niece and being so hurt he couldn’t do anything at all to help her rendered him. That feeling—that moment—made him tear apart physically as well as emotionally. He loved her. Had loved her since her birth. Would always love her. And to see something you’d die for—someone you’d die for—be so hurt, and then be unable to do a damn thing about it.…