Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  Humming a Cerran tune, Lohien poured the ingredients into the pan and added a few more spices and pigeon meat. After fifteen minutes over a low flame, Jetta and Jaeia saw their culinary disaster turn into a feast.

  “Here, you take the first bite,” Jetta said, offering her sister a spoonful of the soup.

  “It’s good,” Jaeia said, licking her lips. “Thanks, Auntie!”

  “Very well. But you two,” she said, pointing to the mess on the counter. “Clean that up before you eat.”

  As they cleaned up the spills, still elated at the success of their concoction, Jetta surprised her.

  “Think fast,” she said, splashing her with dish soap from the sink.

  “No fair!” Jaeia retaliated, throwing a handful of flour at her sister.

  Seconds later they fell to the floor, rolling around and laughing hysterically until Lohien came in and told them to get back to cleaning or they’d miss out on dinner.

  “That was great,” Jetta said, lying on her back and wiping the flour from her forehead. She poked Jaeia in the side and smiled. “You make everything fun. Thanks.”

  It had been one of their few times together, alone, as sisters, and it was one of her most treasured memories.

  To see Jetta laugh and be playful—that is the best feeling in the world, Jaeia decided. When happy, Jetta’s aura felt like the sun shining down on her, and all became right with the world. Their secret bond felt electric, magnetic—and most wonderful of all, in harmony, as if their souls were perfectly knitted together.

  Smiling, Jaeia opened her eyes. The stars were gone. Instead, she could see a hazy image of her sister through a jagged tear in the galactic fabric. Jetta, curled up in a ball underneath a dirty, patched blanket, shivered and moaned. She seemed to be injured, but somebody had taken the time to bandage her up.

  (There she is!) Jaeia exclaimed, pulling away from Triel.

  The Healer held tight to her. (Don’t stray from me,) she cautioned. (We have to stay together. We can’t get separated, or else we won’t find our way back to our bodies.)

  (What can I do?)

  (Try and call out to her now.)

  Jaeia held her breath and dug deep into the back of her mind, focusing on the image of her sister as she called out: (Jetta, wake up! Where are you? We’re trying to find you!)

  Jetta’s brow furrowed, and she curled into a tighter ball, but she didn’t wake.

  (Oh Gods...) the Healer said. (I think she’s been drugged. We’ll have to risk entering her mind. Hold on...)

  Jaeia’s awareness elongated, stretching farther and farther away over an impossible distance. She could sense Triel, bending and extending in unison with her, as they plunged through the hole in the fabric towards her twin. A terrible pain shot through her, igniting her senses, sending sheets of fire down her phantom body as they crossed the threshold of the in-between.

  (Hold on!) Triel cried.

  The pain intensified, making her panic for release, but Triel brought her even closer. The pulse of the Healer’s being flowed through her like running water, and for a brief moment she fell in tune with Triel’s mind, hearing and seeing things that were hidden deep within the Healer’s soul.

  Rion, the Abomination. Jaeia saw her face reflected back at her, as well as the images of her siblings. From the Healer’s heart whispered chilling words: Harbinger of Death and Destruction.

  But before Jaeia had a chance to react, or understand the meaning of this revelation, she found herself thrust into a new body.

  (Jetta!)

  She felt the rise and fall of Jetta’s chest, and the steady beat of her heart. Even unconscious, her sister’s pain, a seething entity relegated to orbit in the distant periphery, still shocked Jaeia with its intensity. (She’s hurt badly—we have to get her out of there.)

  Jaeia didn’t understand where they were. Nothing made sense to her. Jarred by what she saw, Jaeia tried to steady herself as images reeled in disorder, ebbing and flowing around her like half-thoughts.

  (She’s asleep,) Triel said. (She’s dreaming.)

  Jaeia reached out, stirring the light, colors, and sound. (Jetta, we’re here! Wake up!)

  Despite Jaeia’s attempts, her sister’s sleep state seemed uninterrupted by their presence.

  (You have to do something more,) the Healer said. (We can’t stay here. This is our last chance.)

  Jaeia understood. With their minds bridging millions of light years, staying tethered to their own bodies was becoming more and more difficult the more time they spent apart from them, especially now that they had taken up residence inside Jetta. The pain of corporeal separation, once fierce and insufferable, grew more distant and dull as time pressed on.

  Gods, being inside Jetta’s dream like this feels just like that terrible otherworld where I made her battle Jahx, she thought. Realizing that, Jaeia knew what to do. Using her second voice, Jaeia projected an image of herself into Jetta’s dream.

  (See me,) she whispered.

  Her own image, though distorted and fluctuating, appeared in the middle of Jetta’s ever-changing dream world.

  (Tell me where you are so I can find you,) she said firmly.

  Jetta reacted. The world changed. Their surroundings became fixed and solid in the form of crumbling walls and rotting piping.

  Jaeia took it all in. No windows, gray-green piping. The air smelled old and stale. Large holding tanks and a control box, situated in the corner of the dimly light of the room, looked like a snapshot from a different time.

  A shadowed outline of a cross over the control box with a small figure in the middle caught her eye. From what little she could see, Jaeia could tell that the entire room centered around the display.

  That’s a key component, her instincts told her. Some kind of important symbol in this place.

  She thought she saw the shapes of doll heads lining a shelf, but she couldn’t be sure. A stack of plastic containers stood in the corner. Jaeia figured they were used for food storage, but by the looks of it, food was scarce.

  Jaeia paid special attention to the signs and posters on the walls. She could make out a few letters, but too much of the text was indistinguishable either from decay or shadow. None of it looked very decorative—more like a desperate attempt to cover something up.

  The sound of people speaking in whispers drew her attention.

  Is that Common? She couldn’t be sure. Stretching out as far as she dared, Jaeia tried to see them, but they stood beyond the limits of their connection.

  (It hurts to speak,) Jetta whispered, her pain slicing through Jaeia like an electric shock.

  Something or someone is preventing her from using her telepathy, Jaeia realized.

  Jaeia held onto the Healer to keep from being taken by Jetta’s torment. (Where are you? Give me a name!)

  The strange voices in the background grew louder; she heard several words: fighting rings—hard cash—now.

  (No!) Jaeia cried, but it was too late. They snapped backwards, the Healer holding fast as they shot across space and time.

  JAEIA OPENED HER EYES with a scream. The Minister and the CCO held her down while Kaoto drew up a sedative. Triel, refusing the admiral’s attempts to comfort her, immediately rushed to Jaeia’s side.

  “Jaeia, Gods—I’m so sorry—I had to pull back. We were there for longer than we should have been. Can you feel me?”

  Triel touched her arm and her hand, but Jaeia couldn’t feel a thing. Her responses, sluggish and numb, made her feel all the more disconnected, as if her body was not her own.

  “Don’t worry, it will come back to you. It might take a little while, though. It’s a shock to the system to span that far out. I’m sorry,” Triel repeated, rubbing her temples.

  “The commander’s electrolyte levels are dangerously low,” Kaoto said to the Healer. “And I don’t like her vital signs or the rest of her chemistries.”

  “I’ll fix that,” Triel said, taking Jaeia’s hand.

  The Healer dipped
beneath her skin and rummaged around her circulatory system. Even after all this time, Jaeia still couldn’t acclimate to the sensations of being healed. Gentle fingers ran along and through the deepest layers of blood and viscera, mending wounds and balancing energies.

  Triel resurfaced looking exhausted. “There. Everything’s restored.”

  “Well?” the Minister said impatiently. “What did you find?”

  Jaeia smoothed back her hair and tried to concentrate on her words, but everything and everybody still moved too quickly for her.

  “Jetta is somewhere old, very far away,” Jaeia sputtered, mind still trying to make sense of the experience. “I saw some kind of cross, and heard Common. I also saw posters that used the Starways alphabet, but they were arranged in a strange order. It must have been a root language...”

  “It’s a dead place,” Triel added. “That’s what I felt. And Jetta’s in danger. I believe she crashed down on a planet and is being held captive by someone who wants to use her in a fighting ring. And there’s something that’s preventing her from directly communicating to us. She said it ‘hurt to speak.’”

  “Have we found a trace of her ship’s emergency signal?” the Minister asked.

  Chief Mo shook his head. “No, we haven’t. But planetary interference, damage to the beacon, sabotage—there could be many reasons we can’t trace it.”

  “A dead place. What does that mean?” Unipoesa asked.

  “The environment,” Triel said, hands crafting a world they couldn’t see. “It feels dead to me. I don’t know how to better explain it.”

  “Maybe it’s a Class 5 planet,” Gaeshin Wren suggested.

  “We should run a trace on all the planets that are colonized but considered uninhabitable. Maybe she’s on a world that’s still being terraformed,” the admiral said. He snapped his fingers. “And cross-reference it with all planets that are known to have illegal fighting rings. That limits the possibilities...”

  The Admiral’s words faded, eclipsed by a tingling sensation traveling from her toes and fingers toward her core. Just as Jaeia was trying to make sense of it, the lights and sounds in the room became too much for her. Conversation turned into hurricane winds against her eardrums; light, a searing fire across her retinas. Jaeia brought her hands to her ears and tucked her head to her chest.

  “Commander, are you okay?” Kaoto asked, raising his bioscanner to her chest.

  “Jaeia,” Triel said, taking her arm to keep her from falling.

  Then, she heard it. Voices, in the back of her mind, whispering. Strange feelings, as if a collection of moments from other lifetimes raced through her at the same time, leaving her disjointed and confused. A voice rose above all of the other lipless speakers, calling out to her in a language she didn’t know but nonetheless understood. An ancient cry, telling of a pain that had lasted for centuries, full of longing and unfulfilled promises.

  “She’s somewhere I haven’t been, but I know. I can’t describe it,” Jaeia said breathlessly.

  “What do you mean?” Tidas Razar asked.

  Triel looked at her, eyes narrowing. “It’s a stolen memory, perhaps. Or maybe something passed down to you.”

  “I’ll advise the Fleet and assign Acting-Commander Rook to compose a Special Missions Team for this,” Wren said, inputting his commands on his uniform sleeve.

  “No—let me do it. I’ll lead the SMT,” Jaeia said.

  “Your situation is compromised,” the Military Minister said. “You can advise the team, but you will remain in command of our Contact Team. Chief Wren, please draw up your proposal within the hour. Dismissed.”

  Jaeia stood her ground. “I object. I can find Jetta faster than anybody here. If I can’t lead the team, I should at least be commanding the ground units.”

  The room fell silent. Razar folded his hands behind his back and regarded her sternly. “We have that situation covered, Commander.”

  Jaeia found herself unusually intolerant of the Minister. Maybe it was the stress of spanning the stars, or perhaps her growing instability being kept so far apart from her twin. “I object.”

  Razar stood up, his nose flaring. “I gave you an order, Commander. I expect you to follow through with it. Report to your post.”

  He’s intentionally trying to assert his dominance after our dispute over Reht Jagger, she thought, meeting his gaze. I can’t back down—not when Jetta was hurt and trapped somewhere dangerous.

  “The rest of you are dismissed,” Tidas Razar barked. He waited for the rest of the party to leave before addressing her again. “You and your sister are my best battle commanders,” he said, not mincing his words. “We can’t afford to lose either of you. But if the situation with the Deadwalkers becomes critical, I need you advising Wren or even taking over command—I can’t have you chasing after your sister. Do you understand?”

  Jaeia sighed and sat heavily on her couch. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good.”

  Jaeia retied her hair. “I saw that I’m assigned to investigate any relation between Li and Victor; Admiral Unipoesa conferred with me about his findings.”

  “Yes. This is a high-priority situation. You can still check in with the CCO and Acting-Commander Rook every hour to get an updated status on your sister. Your input is paramount. Also, keep advised on the Deadwalker situation; we still have no contact with any ship, post, or planet in its path.”

  Razar left, leaving her alone in her quarters. She tightened her hair again, fighting back the urge to cry.

  How did it come to this?

  A comforting arm wrapped around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze.

  “How did—?” Jaeia exclaimed, shocked to see the Healer sitting beside her on the couch.

  “Many years of practice in the forests of Algar,” Triel said, blushing. “I learned to be quiet if I wanted to see the night creatures.”

  “Impressive,” Jaeia said, still unsure how the Healer could slip back inside without her noticing.

  “Hey,” Triel said, squaring herself to her. “Everything will be okay. Jetta’s a tough one. There isn’t much she can’t handle.”

  Jaeia couldn’t help but chuckle. That much is true.

  The Healer withdrew her arm from around her shoulders. “So... do you want to tell me about Reht?”

  “Stop reading my mind,” Jaeia said, wiping her eyes. “And I do, but I don’t know if now is the time.”

  Concern spread across the Healer’s face. “What have they done to him?”

  Jaeia closed her eyes. “He tried to use the flash transport device to bargain his way out of Alliance territory. Didn’t work. The Minister’s niece was flashed, and I don’t think he was willing to bargain for the life of his only remaining family member.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Jaeia paused, weighing the consequences of telling her the truth.

  I can’t spare her the pain, she decided, seeing the intensity in the Healer’s eyes. She’s too attuned; she’d pick up on any lie. “Very. He won’t talk. His mind is totally locked, but I don’t know why. Even with what they did to him, I can’t imagine it would cause damage that massive.”

  “I need to go,” the Healer said, abruptly getting up.

  Jaeia caught her by the arm. “We should go together. I don’t know what’s wrong with him—I don’t think it’s something you should face alone.”

  “This can’t wait, Jaeia,” Triel said, the edge of panic in her voice. “Every moment counts.”

  Jaeia ground her fist into the couch. She was due at her post, and the situation with Li and Victor, her sister and the Deadwalkers couldn’t wait.

  Triel did not keep the hurt out of her eyes. “Please, Jaeia—for me. He is more than a friend or crewmate.”

  Jaeia looked at her, then through her, feeling the Healer’s strain and burgeoning imbalance. These types of feelings are dangerous for Triel, she thought. If I don’t help her, I’ll leave her vulnerable to the dark trappings of the Dissembler.
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  “Okay—but I can’t be long,” Jaeia said. “I’m breaking about a dozen different protocols, not to mention risking the Fleet.”

  Triel grabbed her hand. “Thank you.”

  Jaeia summoned a lift, and notified her second-in-command of her delay. When he didn’t immediately respond, she assumed the worse. He’s probably reporting my absence to my superiors.

  Guilt tore at her worry. No—I can’t let that bother me right now, she told herself as she boarded the lift with the Healer. I have to help Reht and Triel; I can’t let them down.

  Jaeia sighed and rubbed her tired eyes as they whisked down the corridors and through the transway shafts. Despite her best intentions to stay focused on her current objective, her mind wandered back to what had recently transpired.

  Those images, Jaeia recalled, thinking of what she had gleaned from Jetta’s mind. Especially that cross on the wall—I need to figure out what it is.

  A sudden recollection jolted her attention. She gripped the railing to the lift. “Triel, what’s ‘Rion the Abomination?’ I heard those words inside you when we were trying to contact Jetta.”

  Triel turned to her, alarm evident in her eyes and in her posture. “Not now, Jaeia, but soon.”

  Jaeia tilted her head. Unable to catch any stray psionic information from the Healer, she relied on her intuition. “Do you know what I am? Am I really human—or am I something else? Are Jetta and I this ‘abomination,’ this ‘harbinger of death and destruction’?”

  “That depends,” Triel said, her voice just above a whisper. “You have a choice.”

  “I have a choice?”

  Triel closed her eyes as the lift slowed to a halt. “It will have to wait, Jaeia. It looks like we were expected.”

  Jaeia’s heart sank as she looked at the empty corridor ahead. The guards were gone, and a cleaning crew milled around the dog-soldiers’ quarters, barking orders at each other as they tried to figure out where to start in the waist-high mess.

  “Oh no,” Jaeia said as she carefully waded into the debris. There was the dog-soldiers’ usual untidiness with the piles of empty food containers and cigarette butts, but there was also evidence of a fight. Blood stains peppered the walls. Pieces of broken furniture and a fistfuls of blue hair covered the floor. I didn’t want it to be like this.