A careful smile came to his face as he repeated himself. “Don’t worry. You’re not alone.”
A MILLION THOUGHTS raced through Jetta’s head as she sprinted down the corridor to the intensive care unit on the Alliance Central Starbase, but she tried to focus on just one: helping Triel. Broken soldiers with disfigured faces littered the hallways, blast marks and singed walls hinting at the battle that had ensued as she followed Triel’s path of destruction.
Jetta rounded the corner where a complement of her SMT was holding down the perimeter.
“Status report,” Jetta whispered, kneeling down besides the unit leader.
Decked out in heavy black armor with laser-sighted weapons, the unit leader indicated with hand signals their current situation. The Healer had broken into the secured wing and was heading toward Isolation 1, where Tidas Razar was on life support. No one could approach her location without being killed, and they had already tried electric traps, smoke bombs, neuroagents, and tranquilizers, all without effect.
“She reacts to violence, so your aggression will only make things worse. Stay here, and no matter what happens to me, do not go any farther than this perimeter. That is an order, Lieutenant Ferraway,” Jetta said.
Her heart in her throat, she stepped over broken glass and mangled equipment and into the emptied nurse’s station. Vital signs monitors echoed in the distance, but more immediate to her attention was the painful dissonance that welled in her mind. It was the most terrible feeling in the world, a shrieking animal fear she could hear in her bones, making her skin shrivel and her heart ache. With every step the feeling intensified, but she knew she couldn’t turn back. Triel was her friend, and she had to help her.
“Don’t come any further Jetta.”
The voice cut right through her. It was Triel’s voice, but multi-tonal, as if the sound was originating from more than one place.
Jetta stopped ten meters in front of Tidas Razar’s bed. His head was bandaged, and he was hooked up to a life-support unit, connected to a startling array of tubes and lines that dangled from the ceiling. She hesitated, knowing that Triel was going to kill him for betraying her, and for a moment it didn’t seem like a bad idea. But she realized the consequences of allowing Triel to do that, for both her and Triel.
“Triel—I came here as fast as I could.”
“Why?” she said, stepping out from the shadows of the digital column near Razar’s motionless body. “You can’t stop me from killing him.”
Jetta was stunned. Triel’s blue eyes had corroded to black, her skin streaked a gruesome gray, yellow and green. Her people’s markings had all but faded, replaced by spidery purple veins threading the deathly color of her flesh.
“This isn’t you. You’re not a Dissembler. You’re a Healer, and you’re my friend. I can help you.”
“You’re too late,” Triel said, gray lips twisting into a smile.
“I know you’re not a Dissembler. Otherwise you would have killed me the instant you saw me.”
“Leave, Jetta. Before I do kill you,” Triel whispered as she spread her arms over Razar’s body.
Jetta winced as she sensed what the Healer was intending to inflict upon the helpless Minister. Even in her own rage, Jetta couldn’t conceive of such torture.
Holding her head in her hands as the Healer’s psionic dissonance multiplied, Jetta fell to her knees. “Please, Triel. For me. Please stop.”
“For you?” she laughed, tipping her head back. “What do you care what happens to me?”
Jetta’s mouth froze open. It seemed an impossible question to answer, something she had avoided acknowledging since their first meeting. Something about Triel attracted her, something inexplicable, something that she constantly struggled against. She respected the Healer for her talents, admired her for her convictions, appreciated her exotic beauty—but there was more, and she had known it all along. It wasn’t just Triel’s friendship that Jetta craved all those lonely nights when she stopped by her quarters.
Jetta clenched her jaw, grinding her fists into the tiled floor. “You are my friend. I would do anything for you.”
Triel yanked several of the monitors off of Razar. The life-support machine emitted a frenzy of beeps and warning signals before she sent it crashing to the ground and tore out its power source.
“You left me here—alone. You don’t care about anybody but yourself.”
“It’s not like that!” Jetta said.
She collapsed to the floor as Triel redirected her attentions, the bolts of pain searing through her skull and melting her resolve. She screamed out as the Healer approached, the anguish magnifying with every step.
A frothy mix of blood and saliva dripped down the Healer’s neck. Triel bent down to her eye level, and Jetta could see the pooling darkness in her eyes, smell the stink of her mottled skin, the coldness of her being. There were only moments left for Triel—and for her.
“I have never wanted to hurt you—never meant to hurt you. I care so much about you—I didn’t want you to see—” Jetta sputtered as a crushing darkness descended upon her, blinding her to the outside world.
“See what?”
“Me!” Jetta screamed, bucking off the floor as tendrils of pain wrapped around her chest.
Her memories slipped from her without filter, and Jetta, helpless in the vice grip of Triel’s mind, thrashed wildly, but to no avail. The Healer’s mind overpowered her, stripping Jetta of every safeguard she had ever erected against others, her siblings and herself.
Tears streamed from her eyes as Triel filleted her with venomous rage, plunging past guarded memories, those she had repressed and those she had even forgotten. Black fire choked her inner voice as she clawed at Triel’s chest, desperate to make her stop before she exposed more than her vital organs.
Jetta floated away from herself, her sight darkened, her ears deafened, a strange calmness pervading her senses as the Healer’s poisonous presence deceived her body. She had felt this way before, when she had faced Jahx, and she recognized that mournful separation as the prelude to death.
And then it stopped. Jetta could breathe again, and the world rushed back to her in a thunderous blast of sound and light. The seething pain dissipated into an aching fatigue that saturated every muscle fiber. She opened her eyes to see the Healer bent over her, her eyes bloody but irises blue, staring through her, chest heaving.
With all her strength, Jetta managed to lift her arm and wrap her fingers around Triel’s forearm. Warmth had returned to the Healer’s skin, though a cold sweat stained her clothes.
“Jetta,” Triel whispered. “I didn’t think... I didn’t know.”
Jetta slowly felt Triel withdrawing from her mind, control returning to her. She had no idea what the Healer had seen, or what she was feeling now. Triel was still distant, but her psionic essence, once a cacophony of pain, was balancing itself into a familiar tune.
Triel shifted her weight, then collapsed next to her. Jetta willed herself to sit up and gently prodded the Healer.
“Triel—Triel!” she tried.
“Jetta!”
Jetta turned her head to see Jaeia and a complement of shock troopers trailing her.
“Stay back! I order you to stay back!” Jetta said, collecting herself off the ground and positioning herself between the guards and Triel.
“Kill her.”
Everyone in the room turned to see that the Minister had awakened. Rolled onto his side, eyes barely open, he tried to speak, the oxygen mask muffling his words. “That was a direct order, soldier.”
“No,” Jetta said, spreading out her arms. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you.”
“Jetta, come away from her,” Jaeia said calmly. “She’s dangerous.”
“How can you say that after she’s saved our lives so many times? You know I can save her,” Jetta said, not fighting the tears anymore. “Please, Jaeia.”
Jetta felt her twin in the back of her mind, and for the first time in their
lives, exhausted and desperate, she let Jaeia in as far as she dared. “Please, Jaeia.”
Jaeia’s gray eyes misted over, tears building in the corners. Jetta didn’t hear Jaeia’s response, but she felt it in her soul. Don’t leave me. Not again, Jetta.
“I have to do this,” Jetta whispered back.
“Kill her!” the Minister screamed with his remaining strength.
The shock troopers raised their weapons, their blue electrocells whining as they charged to fire.
“Commander Kyron, please step aside,” the unit leader said.
Jetta looked once more into her sister’s eyes, pleading. I will come back. I am so sorry for the way I’ve treated you. Please—you have to trust me.
Jaeia closed her eyes, her brow furrowing momentarily before she spoke. “Stand down, all units. Stand down.”
Jetta didn’t waste any time as Jaeia used her second voice to control the actions of the shock troopers. “Keep Jahx safe until I return.”
“I will,” Jaeia said, looking away from her.
“Thank you,” Jetta said as she threw Triel’s arm over her shoulder, and with every last ounce of strength, pulled her up from the ground. Triel’s head bobbled, but she managed to gain her own footing. The Healer mumbled something in her delirium, but Jetta didn’t pay attention as she dragged her out of the intensive care unit. The shock troopers and the SMT all aimed their weapons at her, but none of them possessed the will to follow the Minister’s order.
Thank you, Jaeia.
Jetta summoned a lift outside the intensive care unit and gently lay the Healer down on the bed. As they zipped down the corridor back to the bay where she had docked her stealth fighter, Jetta felt her sister’s heartache spread through her own chest.
I promise, Jaeia—I promise I can save her. I will come back and we will make things right.
But she wasn’t as sure as she sounded. She looked at her reflection in the mirrored bed of the lift, her color ashen, cheeks sunken. The sickness inside her was spreading, and now she had a Falling Healer in her care. Triel had told her it took an entire tribe of Prodgies to save one Fallen Healer—so how could she, in her condition, in the constant fight against herself, save her friend? Every time she had tried to help someone, it had always ended in tragedy.
I am a monster.
She looked down again at the floor bed of the lift. Victor’s inhuman face, distorted by the curve of the paneling, quietly smiled back at her.
Chapter II
Reht Jagger awoke to the sting of a syringe withdrawing from his forearm. He shot up, gasping for breath, heart in overdrive.
“It wears off in a minute,” a gruff-looking fellow said, wiping the needle on his greasy pants and replacing the cap.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
Reht couldn’t identify the man’s species, but his scales hinted at Wormeron ancestry and the respirator over his gills at Jelaion. His Common was terrible and his breath even worse. “You’re safe enough.”
The room was no bigger than a storage cell and jammed with bunk beds, scrapped furniture, and knee-high waste. Old videoreels and skin magazines with broken spines lay scattered across the nameless junk, nude females winking at him from faded posters adorning the wall. The stink was familiar—body odor and leftover booze; it reminded him of the Wraith.
Reht grimaced as he inspected the wounds criss-crossing his chest, sobering to the reality of what had transpired. Disturbing memories swam into focus as he traced the lacerations with his finger—
Diawn slashing him across the chest with her razorcutter fingers—shooting Mar in the back with pierced rounds—riding on top of him—glaring at him with pure hatred as her white boot struck his face, sending him spiraling into the belly of the cargo ship—the tangle of limbs and slick skins swallowing him whole—the smell of rotting flesh, of death.
He threw up. The man scooted back to avoid the backsplash, swearing in his native language.
“Where am I?” Reht asked again, wiping off his mouth. “And who the chak are you?”
The fellow regarded him with a mix of irritation and amusement. “Name’s Rook. And like I said—you’re safe. But don’t count on that for much longer. Don’t know why she bothered saving your assino if she’s just planning on killing you again.”
Rook chuckled, slung the medkit over his shoulder, and walked out the door.
Reht eased himself into a sitting position, pressing his palms against the remnants of his shirt. The fabric was stiff with dried blood. When his boots hit the ground, the vibration of the floor told him the starcraft was in a downshift, probably about to dock. Somehow he had escaped from the pit of human bodies.
He had taken a com with him, but a quick search of his jacket turned up nothing. His cash, cigarettes, and chews were gone too.
“Gorsh-shit,” he mumbled.
With a groan he limped over to the door, leaning into the handle until the lock finally released. Directly outside was a mess hall improvised from two overexposed grill cells. Plates and food bits littered the floor, and beer bottles lay in piles or smashed to pieces all over the room. He carefully waded through the debris, stepping over a slumbering body clutching an empty bottle of “Half and Half 20-20,” and pushed through another reluctant door.
Down a plated hallway was the bridge, and he could tell by the screaming match that his timing wasn’t the greatest.
“I was supposed to be escorted!”
“You were—to the belt, as promised.”
“You’re my partner—you were supposed to keep the Alliance away!”
Reht froze. He recognized Diawn’s voice, but the man over the com channel—he knew that voice, too.
“You destroyed my ship and my cargo!”
Fear mingled with the urgent need to know, and his legs carried him down the hall despite his stomach’s mounting protest. The door that was supposed to separate the bridge from the passageway was broken, seemingly jammed in its chamber, and he peeked around the frame.
Reht hadn’t faced him in over seventeen years, but he had seen him every night in his dreams.
“Shandin—” he whispered, nearly choking on the name.
“Shandin,” Diawn said, crossing her arms as best she could across her ample chest. “I’m not leaving without my payment.”
Reht stumbled backward against the railing. Desperate for air, he couldn’t breathe. He slid down the wall, clamping his hands over his mouth as he gasped, trying to make sense of the impossible. Shandin was supposed to have been dead, killed by his employers after botching a massive job on Reht’s homeworld, Elia.
Reht looked at his hands, and beneath the bandages he could feel the acid burn, each letter re-carving itself into his skin. Never in his life did he think he’d be faced with his shame like this again—and never did he think he’d come face-to-face with the man who caused it all.
He crawled over on his hands and knees, careful to stay hidden in the shadow of the doorframe.
Shandin’s expression stayed unreadable as he spoke. “Perhaps you’d better take your complaint to our faithful employer. I’m sure he has a forgiving ear, just like me.”
Diawn’s face went purple as she flexed her razor-tipped fingers. “I want half upfront on the next payload.”
Shandin stared flatly at her. Reht remembered that look—it was the same soulless gaze that had cut him down years ago. “I’ll front you a thousand, but I want a shipment of no less than four thousand. And healthy.”
“Fourth-class and healthy?” Diawn snorted. “Minimum three thousand just for bartering and fuel.”
It was an impossible assignment. Fourth-class humans were life laborers or fighting ring bait, and kholeria, diplethominia, and the Gunta virus were common ailments. Uninfected, healthy, fourth-class humans were about as common as telepaths that had survived the Dissembler Scare.
Shandin shook his head. “Fifteen hundred. Last offer. I’ll send you the nav specs to a colony on Europa. Alliance recently vaccina
ted and relocated them. Mostly refugees from Jue Hexron and Ganymaius.”
“Human royalty?” Diawn laughed.
Reht saw it in his eyes, the way he curled in his lower lip; Shandin found her disgusting. “Alliance regularly patrols the site, so don’t chak up. Stop by this location when you’re done with the drop-off. I have something for you, partner.”
A series of navigation signatures replaced Shandin’s image on the projection field. Reht scratched the signature into his arm with his fingernail as he retreated down the hallway.
The engines had cycled down to an idle, and he stumbled into the wall as locking clamps took hold of the ship. But as he spotted an emergency hatch, he paused. What about his mission? He would need more information to satisfy the bounty. And what about his crew? If he lost the bounty, they would be out a large sum and take a huge hit on their reputation. Besides, he knew he was skating on thin ice after the bad business with the Alliance, and he didn’t want to test his crew’s loyalty further.
At the same time, how could he not? Shandin wasn’t some ordinary thug, and for the first time in seventeen years, Reht had a confirmed location. Every fiber in his being had longed for revenge since the death of his parents, and until moments ago, he had never thought it could be realized.
Reht squeezed his bandaged hands together, gritting his teeth against the memory.
“Just tell me where to find them, and this can all be over,” Shandin whispered in his ear as Reht fell to his knees. The native’s featherhawks still jutted from his parents’ backs where they sat slumped in their chairs at the breakfast table, blood pooled around their feet.
“I will tell you everything,” he said.
“Chakking Gods,” Reht said, pressing his knuckles into his eyes. He would kill the ratchakker.
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