Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  “You did this,” he said, throwing a cloth sack at her. Out spilled pieces of bakken.

  This was supposed to be their day of celebration. She had stolen a week’s worth of food from one of the galleys on the mining ship, and she and her siblings were finally going to have a full day’s worth of meals. But he found out, like he always did.

  “You know what the punishment is for stealing,” he said, removing his belt slowly, savoring the moment.

  Her perspective changed. No longer near the level of his eyes, Jetta’s body shrunk into a skeletal form that barely came up to his waist. Grease and scabs covered her tiny hands, and her body, wobbly and tired, protested even the slightest exertion. Unsure of whether to fight or flee, Jetta froze. I am four years old again.

  Pieces of glass collected and reformed into the decorative figurines that had lined the corkboard table. The couch stuffing picked itself up off the floor and tucked itself back inside the cushions. The blood dotting the walls disappeared, and the carpet no longer oozed beneath her feet.

  “No!” she screamed.

  She felt movement against her leg, and turned to see her brother and sister crouched at her side. She didn’t remember them being so small, or so sickly.

  (Jetta, do what must be done!)

  “NO!” she screamed, straddling her siblings, placing herself between them and their owner.

  (Jetta, do what must be done. For me. For Jahx.)

  Her arms and legs turned to lead. She couldn’t let Yahmen through. I can’t let him hurt Jahx!

  Her brother looked up at her, his blue eyes wet with tears. “Jetta, please...”

  Yahmen’s hand reared back, slanted light from the window glinting off the belt buckle.

  (Jetta, do what must be done. Do it for Jahx.)

  “I warned you!” Yahmen screamed.

  Jaeia stole the choice from her. Jetta’s body folded helplessly as Yahmen’s arm knocked her backward. He shoved Jaeia’s tiny body aside as he grabbed Jahx up by the front of his shirt with his free hand, grinning drunkenly into his terrified face.

  “You’ll do,” he slurred, and then slammed Jahx’s head against the wall.

  Jetta screamed. It’s supposed to be my blood on the wall, not his!

  Paralyzed by her sister’s voice, she watched in horror as Jahx’s body bounced lifelessly off the floor. Yahmen’s belt came down again and again, even though Jahx no longer struggled.

  A cry drowned out the rhythmic strikes of Yahmen’s belt. It came from all around her, and as it intensified, the image of Yahmen, their apartment, and her siblings faded into the murk.

  Jetta covered her ears. Deafening in its ferocity, the wail rose above the cacophony of the other telepathic minds. The bioelectric energy around her swelled, growing in brightness until the light blinded her, and she covered her eyes. Then all went dark.

  (What have I done?)

  Emptiness. Stillness. A loss that time couldn’t measure.

  (I killed my brother.)

  Something inside her broke loose as power snaked through her like living electricity. She had been wrong about how she felt. She did want revenge. And in this realm that fused the psionic and the physical, she could take it. I will wield the dark power of the Motti just as it wielded my brother.

  Eyes like burning coals peered down at her from every direction. She closed her eyes, extending her mind to the creature. Jahx’s death had left it weakened and wounded. Having severed its bonds, she knew it needed her, and for some reason, she allowed it to come closer. As the eyes drew closer she could feel the attraction, the familiarity between them.

  (How do I know you?)

  Her mind expanded into the demon’s awareness, into its malice and discontent, into the infectious hatred that fueled its every thought. So familiar—

  (You are a humanoid I do not despise. You are different from the others. You share my disgust for the infectious impurity of the Sentients,) whispered countless voices.

  (My revenge starts with you,) Jetta hissed.

  The eyes came closer, and before she could react, the demon slipped beneath her skin, distending her veins with molten fury. She wanted to pull back, but it surrounded her.

  (Your brother was weak, and you are too. You are useless as you are.)

  (You underestimate me!) she screamed.

  She tore at the seething entity that surrounded her, freeing all of the unwanted emotion she had once restrained. But the very things she released—all the suffering she had known, all of her anger—was the very thing it hungered for. Instead of retracting, it devoured her. The heat ripped through her chest, braiding itself with the streams of her own power, expanding until her skin felt like it would burst.

  Power. Unrestrained power. She could do anything she wanted. Her heart beat rapidly with excitement, her mind tingling with anticipation.

  (With eyes open, they burn.)

  The alien thought repeated itself over and over again in her mind, until she found herself feeling things she had never felt before with such fervency. (There is so much in the Starways that is useless and unnecessary,) she realized. (The Sentients are corrupted by their fleshy desires, freighted by free will and their knowledge of good and evil.)

  Her own anger aligned with the collective hunger. (I will take up the reins of power my brother refused, and I will end all of those who have harmed me and my siblings.)

  Jetta didn’t know where to start. (Yahmen,) she thought, suddenly thirsting for his death, but that wasn’t where it had started. It was Galm’s decision to adopt them that had placed them in Yahmen’s reach. She would start with him, and Lohien would follow. There were the dog-soldiers, too. They were the ones who sent her back to the Alliance to kill Jahx.

  Of course she would spare no one from the Core, especially Mantri Sebbs. He was the one that gave them the test that exposed them to the Motti in the first place. Every soldier and every officer of the Alliance would pay too, beginning with Tidas Razar and Damon Unipoesa. They put her on this path. It was their fault. It was the fault of every Sentient that had allowed the Dominion Core to arrest telepaths. They killed Jahx.

  (Jetta, no!), somebody cried. Somebody familiar. Someone important.

  Jaeia. (My sister—)

  Jetta screamed, seismic rage burning through her like fire as she remembered what Jaeia had done. It was Jaeia’s voice that had guided her powers to create the reality that had killed their brother.

  (Why did you do it, Jaeia? Were you that jealous? Jealous enough to kill Jahx? He loved us more than anything and YOU KILLED HIM!) Power surged into her hands. (I will kill my sister first.)

  (Remember,) Jaeia pleaded, (Jetta, please remember!)

  Reaching inwards, Jetta yanked at her psionic connection to her sister, but Jaeia’s position seemed unusually grounded. (Jaeia isn’t that strong—someone must be helping her—)

  (You have to remember,) Jaeia said, using her second voice again. (Remember us.)

  Jetta fought viciously against the psionic pull, the dark entity surging within her, giving her the strength to resist.

  (Remember me.)

  (I will make you pay for what you—)

  She gulped for breath as her eyes opened to an entirely different world. Sights and smells long forgotten accosted her senses. Hot and arid air filled her lungs while the green-tiled kitchen, bright and full of energy, chased away the illusion of shadow. Light streamed in from the windows, illuminating her uncle’s young face as he smoked his pipe and read from a newsreel at the table.

  “Jetta, can you pass me that plate?”

  Aunt Lohien? Jetta passed her aunt the last of the dirty dishes before running off to play with her siblings in the other room.

  “You’re it!” Jaeia squealed as she and Jahx bolted for cover.

  “No fair!” Jetta said, running after them. A barrage of pillows followed, along with a scolding from Galm as they tipped over a lamp.

  “Come here, you,” Galm said, tickling her belly as he righted
the lamp. “Be nice to your brother and sister.”

  Time shifted. The amber rays of night filtered through the windows. Jetta found herself sprawled out on her mattress, trying to fall asleep, but the heat kept her awake.

  “Hey, scoot over,” Jahx said, gently pushing her with his feet.

  “I can’t sleep,” Jaeia mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

  “Just try,” Jetta said.

  “Well, if you hadn’t had that second helping of meatloaf, maybe we could all sleep.”

  “Whatever. Last night you stunk so bad that I didn’t fall asleep—I passed out!” Jetta retorted, playfully hitting her sister in the shoulder. Jaeia returned fire, but Jahx held them both apart until they stopped.

  “Jetta, tell us a story,” Jahx asked.

  “I don’t have any,” Jetta sighed.

  “Then make one up. You’ve always have the best stories,” Jaeia said, propping herself up on her elbows.

  Jetta smiled. “Once there was this girl who had an annoying brother and sister...”

  Then it became a two on one and Jetta didn’t stand a chance. She howled with laughter as her siblings took turns tickling her until their uncle came out of the bedroom to tell them to pipe down.

  (I remember,) Jetta whispered.

  But it wasn’t enough. The demon found the connection to her sister, slicing through it layer by layer, eroding her foothold in the physical world. Thrust back into the darkness, Jetta’s anger rose up, hot and strong.

  (Remember, Jetta—remember why—)

  “Thanks,” Jaeia said, hugging her.

  Jetta found herself back in the red and gray apartment. Boarded up windows blocked out the light. Crushed areas of carpet bespoke of the tables and chairs once furnishing the living room. Where are Galm and Lohien?

  Jetta remembered the time. Things were starting to get really bad. Yahmen had moved them to a community housing unit and forced Galm out of his job.

  “Thanks for always looking out for us. You’ve always been a good sister.”

  Jaeia led her back to the entryway, where they had stacked the cots into a fort. Jahx’s gaunt frame sat inside, darning what was left of a sock.

  “How did you manage to get this?” Jahx said, taking the bakken from Jetta’s hand. He took a bite and then gave it to Jaeia.

  “I lifted it off one of the miners.” Jetta shrugged.

  “You’re hurt,” Jaeia said, pointing to Jetta’s knees.

  “I fell running down conduit six. No big deal.” Jetta wiped at the grease and blood, but that just smeared it across her leg.

  “Let me do that,” Jaeia said, getting up. She came back from the kitchen with a wet rag.

  “Stop it,” Jetta said, turning away.

  “You stop it,” Jaeia said, putting a hand on her shoulder and forcing her to sit.

  Jetta grumbled, but the wet rag did feel good on her knees.

  “You never let me help. I want to help, you know,” Jaeia said when she finished.

  “Thanks, Jae,” Jetta said, hugging her.

  Jaeia kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “I love you.”

  (But you made me kill him!) Jetta cried, sobs wracking her body.

  Jetta stormed back through the threads of their psionic bond, straight into Jaeia’s consciousness, and as she moved in for the kill, her sister’s resolve collapsed. Unbridled emotions washed down on her, and for the first time in her life, Jetta saw the raw truth through her sister’s eyes.

  “You and I both know that in the end, it will be your decision.”

  As she sat in front of Admiral Unipoesa, Jetta rubbed her hands nervously against the fabric of the chair. His words carried the weight of the galaxy, and his eyes conveyed a hard sympathy that drew out her tears. He waited for her to respond, analyzing her every reaction as the moments passed by. Was she strong enough? Could she make that kind of decision?

  She heard Jaeia’s thoughts as if they were her own: Jetta will never forgive me; she will hate me forever. I cannot kill my brother—but how can I let him suffer like this? The admiral is right to doubt me. I have to turn against my sister to set my brother free, but she will never see it that way. I love them so much—they are my life. I will grieve alone, I will be alone, forever, with this decision.

  (Jaeia...)

  Sobering to her sister’s pain, Jetta remembered two gray eyes and a kind smile. She recalled the way their hands fit together and how Jaeia’s embrace gave her hope for more than survival.

  Calmer, she became aware of another set of eyes, blue and luminescent, and a familiar, feminine rhythm that amplified her sister’s thoughts, giving her the strength to maintain their connection across the limbo. She reached out and connected to the other mind, feeling a vastness beyond anything she could rationalize or control. Her body reacted to it, seeming to understand what she had been blinded from in the darkness.

  Slowly, her rage died, numb exhaustion taking hold. The murk dissipated, dark layers shifting, retracting, burning eyes winking out one by one. The inhuman howling subsided to silence, leaving Jetta alone in the darkness.

  (No...! No, this is all wrong. What have I done?) Jetta wept, holding her head in her hands. (I don’t care about the enemy, or revenge. No more killing; I’ve done enough.)

  She wanted to close her eyes and forget herself, lose herself in the vanishing shadow, but someone held fast as the world she ended slowly faded away.

  JETTA DRIFTED IN AND out of a blur of confusion. Days turned into weeks without any sense of time’s passing, except through a narrow scope of scrambled impressions. Images formed and reformed in the haze; dim figures moved in and out of the shadows that surrounded her. Familiar smells, the feel of warm skin on hers. Cold steel pressed against her spine as a stinging sensation on the back of her hand resolved into liquid ice running up her arm.

  Voices. Pieces of conversation floated by as Jetta waded in and out of consciousness.

  “I can’t keep doing this, Minister, this business of breaking kids.”

  “You didn’t even know this one.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t do it anymore.”

  “I would be careful what you say next, Damon. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  Someone held her hand, humming softly. An old memory lay just beyond her reach, but the warm feeling of comfort edged her away from caring.

  “Please wake up. Come back to me.”

  Red eyes in the dark watched her every move, waiting for her, beckoning for her to return. They needed her, but she needed them if she was ever to sate her dark appetites.

  A crisp circle of light purged the shadows from Jetta’s mind. She relaxed a little. Someone embraced her and pulled her backward.

  “Hey, stop cheating!”

  A small hand encircled hers and pulled her down into the cot fort, forcing her head to crane at an awkward angle underneath one of the aluminum feet.

  “Give me back the dice, it’s my turn,” he said.

  (Jahx.)

  Her brother looked no older than four, just about the age before their worst year.

  Jetta opened her hand and the rock dice clattered onto the cement floor. She didn’t want to move. None of this could be real, but she desperately wanted it to be.

  (Don’t go, Jahx. Don’t leave me,) she whispered. (I am so, so sorry. I can’t—)

  “Jetta.” Jahx sat back on his heels, his forehead knotting. He twirled a curl of hair with his index finger as he spoke. “You’re not playing fair. You have to let me play my turn.”

  (I can’t live—I can’t believe—)

  Jahx put his arms around her neck and hugged her, his tiny body pressing up tightly against hers. He kissed on her the cheek and whispered in her ear. “It’s okay, Jetta, everything’s okay. It’s time to wake up now.”

  Tears of release were followed by a slingshot back into hell. Screaming voices, hands holding her down. Fighting only made it worse, but she needed the pain. Jahx is gone!

 
“Please, come back!” she screamed, wanting back the dream. White walls and silver instruments flashed in and out of her limited vision.

  “Where’s Jaeia?” someone shouted.

  Warm hands pressed against her chest. An ethereal presence slipped beneath her skin.

  I am here, I will not go away.

  Foreign essence, something electric she couldn’t ignore. Whispering voices on the edge of shadow called out to her, but this time she did not look back at them.

  The Healer— Jetta realized. Triel’s presence blockaded her fractured thoughts, interlacing with her senses, soothing the bite of her wounds. The magnetic sensation drew her closer, allowing her to forget her grief.

  “Jetta, come back to me,” Jaeia whispered. “Wake up. Please come back to me.”

  Her eyes opened against the burning light.

  “Hey—hey—”

  Someone grabbed her shoulders. “She’s coming around!”

  “How long...? What happened...?” she mumbled, now feeling the ache in her limbs. She tried to shield her eyes, but straps tethered her arms down.

  “Jetta, it’s okay, it’s okay. You just blacked out for a while. Don’t worry, everything’s okay. We won. Everybody’s safe, you’re safe...”

  Medics and doctors fluttered over her, measuring and correcting things she didn’t care about. Fingers interlocked around hers, and in the back of her mind, Jaeia silently rejoiced at her awakening.

  But everything was not okay. She remembered what she had done.

  Jetta laid back and closed her eyes. She saw herself in her mind’s eye, the crimson expectation of death pooling beneath her body while white tendons, stripped from her limbs like puppet strings, held her upright. A sulphur-skinned creature, drudged up from the stinking swamps of her unconscious, jerked and tugged at the cords.

  I cannot escape what I am.

  When she looked closer, the image she saw reflected in her own eyes tore her from her grief, sobering her to the truth. She saw her sister, she saw responsibility, and she knew she would have to wake up.

  JAEIA SENSED THE HEALER’S presence long before she came to stand beside her in the starbase’s observatory.