Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  Jetta and Jahx didn’t say anything. Through their mutual connection they soothed each other, but for Jaeia it wasn’t enough.

  She crawled out again and crept around the corner, keeping her mind locked on her siblings’ perspective of the front door. She picked her way through the shards of glass and pieces of broken furniture until she was at her uncle’s side. He was folded over, breathing heavily, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

  “Pao, why did you let him take her?”

  “I had no choice. I had... no... choice,” he said.

  Jaeia was too little to understand her feelings then, but she understood them now. She was furious at her uncle, beyond any anger she had ever known. How could he let Yahmen steal Lohien? How could he be so weak? How could he allow them all to come to this?

  “He won’t kill her, will he?”

  “She would be better off if he did,” Galm whispered, his eyes growing distant.

  No, Jaeia had thought then, I wish you were dead—then none of this would have ever had to happen!

  Having remembered enough of her own checkered past, Jaeia bit her lip hard enough to make the memories recede. She steadied her hands and called for a lift using the interface on her uniform sleeve. She buzzed through the empty corridors, passing other soldiers only on the deck exchanges. Their situation was getting worse by the hour, and soon there wouldn’t be much left of their quickly unraveling Alliance. If there was to be a resolution, she would have to find it now, before the senior officer’s meeting, before Wren decided whether he was going to give her up to Victor’s forces.

  He appeared as if he had been waiting for her. Unipoesa was in the observatory, facing the astronomy team’s telescope monitors.

  “How did you find me here?”

  “Never play hide and seek with a telepath, Admiral.”

  “I’ve heard this is one of the few places of respite for telepaths on a ship. Away from the main decks, far from the greatest concentration of minds. Even to a plain old Tarkn like me, it’s a nice getaway.”

  “You should count yourself lucky, Admiral,” Jaeia said, standing beside him under the surveillance videos of an emerging star. “If it was Jetta seeking you out, she might not be affording you the luxury of explanation.”

  The admiral’s laughter sounded pained. “Well then, Captain, how can I be of service to you?”

  “I think I have something you want. Something very important.”

  The admiral looked at her curiously. “Oh?”

  “But first you must answer a few of my questions. Do you regret keeping my sister and me in service?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Even though you can’t control our talents?”

  The admiral paused. He seemed to consider an alternate response but resigned himself, with a heavy exhalation, to the truth. “It’s concerned me before, but it’s not what you think. You have no real handle on your own talents, and especially for someone like Jetta, this can present a serious threat to security. Where is she right now?”

  Jaeia remained as calm as she could. “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have you ever wanted us dead?”

  “No—what in the name of the Gods would make you ask that?”

  “Have you ever wished that Tarsha and Li were dead?”

  The admiral sucked back his lips. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Since you’ve been gone, Victor’s been threatening to go public with classified Alliance documents and video footage. I saw one of your personal logs. Your words were...” Jaeia paused for a minute to choose the right words. “...quite inflammatory, between what you said about us and your children.”

  “You know?”

  “I was in the intensive care unit.”

  The admiral mumbled something about the need for a smoke before sitting on the edge of the window railing. He faced her, his tired eyes showing more emotion than she had ever seen in them.

  “You didn’t see everything, Captain,” the admiral said, his voice just above a whisper. “Otherwise you’d know why it would be better if Li and Tarsha were dead.”

  “I understand Li,” Jaeia said. “But not Tarsha.”

  The admiral leaned heavily on the railing, looking away from her. “Tarsha was given top military interrogation resistance training when she was still an operative candidate, and that made it extremely hard to put her to Sleep. Now that Jetta’s given her back some of her memories, her life—and ours—are in danger.”

  Jaeia didn’t see the connection. “How?”

  “Agracia might know that she was once Tarsha, but she’ll never return to her true self unless she is given the Keyword Unlock Sequence. Her opposing personalities will make her unstable and susceptible to numerous countermeasures. If Victor found out who she really is, how she is triggered, he could do whatever he wanted with her.”

  “And she’s a trained officer.”

  “More than that,” Unipoesa said, “Victor has our defense system pretty well mapped out, but she knows all our blackout ops for situations like these. She would know how to find the rest of our fleet.”

  Jaeia lifted a brow. “How would she know that? Those are classified operations.”

  The detail waded up from the admiral’s stolen experiences. “Wait,” Jaeia said, “you slipped her that information.”

  The admiral nodded.

  “Because you really believed in her,” Jaeia whispered. “You really thought she would be the one to win the war for the Coalition. You taught her everything you knew.”

  Her moment of renewed respect quickly dissipated in the wake of everything else she still held against him.

  “What little advantage we have right now would be wiped away if he found a way inside her head, much less put her back in command.”

  “Which he will. He’s seems to be very good at that.”

  “But that’s not all,” the admiral said, staring out the observatory window. “Even if Victor doesn’t get to her, it’s inevitable that she will go mad. Razar was the only one to know the Keyword Unlock Sequence, and he’s a vegetable.”

  “You really care about her?”

  The admiral smiled sadly. “Remember when I first said you reminded me of someone? She was a lot like you. She was compassionate, caring, sensitive—to a fault. She was brilliant, our top student, but she had trouble with the idea of killing real soldiers. It took a lot of... conditioning... to get her used to the idea of battle.”

  This was it. This is what she had to know. “Why did you do it?”

  The admiral knew what she was asking. His eyes drifted away, and his thoughts receded beyond her immediate reach to someplace cold and isolated within himself. “I truly thought that I could end the war, and I gave up everything—everything—to pursue that belief.”

  “Why in that way?”

  “Even from my limited command experience going into the CDP, I knew what if felt like to sacrifice soldiers and deal death to your enemies. But I believed that if we habituated a child to the burdens of command, he or she could thrive in that environment.”

  Jaeia read into his statement. “You never got over the deaths of the soldiers under your command. That’s why that assignment appealed to you.”

  “I know you understand this better than most, Captain,” the admiral said. “I know how poorly you sleep.”

  Jaeia wouldn’t let him flip the conversation back on her. “But this doesn’t justify your treatment of your students.”

  “Doesn’t it?” he asked, his eyes glistening in the light of the stars. “To make a good commander, you have to understand the meaning of pain and discipline, and most importantly, sacrifice. The rules of humanity don’t always apply in wartime.”

  “And I think that’s when they’re the most crucial,” Jaeia replied quietly. She tasted the edge of his deepest sorrow and knew what he was holding back. “I... I never knew you were married.”

  It was not something the admiral had intended to
reveal, but the nature of her questions had exposed his secret. She didn’t need to go farther; she could already see well beyond his words into the craterous pain that had scarred him years ago.

  Jaeia felt tears well in her own eyes as his emotions overpowered her own. “I know that she was why you signed up, and why you fought. But I don’t understand why she left you.”

  “Get out of my head, Captain,” the admiral said through gritted teeth. “Haven’t you had enough of this?”

  “Just one more thing,” Jaeia said, running her fingers along the guard rail, concentrating on the cold smoothness beneath her fingertips. “Why do you care so much about Tarsha Leone?”

  It took the admiral several minutes to compose himself. He turned his back to her when he answered. “I loved her from the very beginning,” he said quietly. “There was always something unique about her, something that elevated her above the dehumanizing bleakness of warfare. What I turned her into—that foul excuse for a Sentient, Agracia Waychild—is unforgivable. But to see her go mad, to know that she’ll lose the last parts of her that made her special—I can’t live with that.”

  “Would you do anything for her?” Jaeia said.

  He turned back to her, dropping his guard, allowing her to see beyond his words. “Yes.”

  Doubt lingered in her thoughts, but she pushed them aside. She looked out to the stars. “Blackbird.”

  “What?”

  “That was the word Razar whispered after you walked away.”

  The admiral’s confusion didn’t abate. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You had said Tarsha was as good as dead. That was his response, I assume. Maybe it’s part of your Keyword Unlock Sequence.”

  “It’s more than one word.”

  “I know someone who could help. But you haven’t been very kind to him.”

  “No, Jaeia, that is not an option.”

  Jaeia shrugged her shoulders. “The Hub is your only choice. He’ll have access to more answers than any of us.”

  The admiral checked the time on his sleeve. “We should get to the meeting.”

  Jaeia stopped him in his tracks. Without asking him she couldn’t go any further. “What did it cost you to do what you did to them?”

  The admiral looked at her for a long time before responding. “You already know the answer to that.”

  AS JETTA FOLLOWED AMARGO into Diez di Trios, she found herself increasingly aware of an otherworldly presence like nothing she had ever felt before, a psionic rhythm that was everywhere and nowhere at once, with no discernible origin. It was a cool sensation in the back of her head, a voice like mist against her ear. It was disconcerting and strangely familiar, and it only got stronger the deeper they went.

  Jetta carefully memorized their route down the dark stairwell, taking in every design carved into the walls. The alien presence was alarming, as was the architecture. Brooding and imposing, it suggested something sinister hiding in every shadow and around each corner. And yet, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt comforted, as if she was returning home after a very long journey.

  Jetta bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. Refocus. Keep sharp. She turned her attention to Amargo. “Your tattoo—where did you get it?”

  Amargo seemed delighted that she asked. “It’s a family tradition; every Delphius has one. My ancestors were on board one of the few ships that made it to the Nine Homeworlds, and like my forefathers, we tattoo the mark of that ship on our skin to remember our struggle and narrow escape from death. It’s a reminder of how precious life is.”

  Jetta rubbed the tattoo on her own arm and frowned. Being reminded of her human heritage made her uncomfortable.

  “I thought Prodgy blood was needed to get into the Temple,” Jetta asked as they ducked underneath a trellis.

  Amargo wiped the cobwebs from his face as they navigated through a narrow passageway. “Not Prodgy blood. Salam told you that, didn’t he?”

  “He seemed very intent on getting it, too.”

  “Well, he was misinformed. You have to be of Prodgy bloodline to enter the most sacred areas. Consequently my wife and I have never made it into many parts of the Temple, just like the many others who tried before us.”

  “Many others?”

  “The Alliance sent a ship here just after the war. They blasted a sizeable hole in the worship chambers, but they never got anywhere.”

  Jetta tested his memories and knew he was telling the truth. “I didn’t know this happened.”

  “Of course not, Commander. The secrets this place possesses are not readily shared, especially by those seeking its power,” he said, hinting at the fate of the Alliance crew.

  Jetta stopped walking. “So why are we doing this? Neither one of us are of Prodgy lineage.”

  Amargo turned around and held the lantern up to her face. “The Seer told my thirty-sixth great-grandfather that the last Prodgy would have a companion, and that this person would be a foreigner in their own skin. She used the word Apparax, which doesn’t have a true Common translation. The best equivalent would be ‘divided soul.’ She told my grandfather that although they would not be Prodgy, they would possess the only other key into Cudal.”

  Jetta scoffed. “If I hadn’t been inside your skull, I would think you were lying. Maybe I should be questioning your sanity.”

  Amargo was unfazed. “Your skepticism—and cynicism—is expected, Commander. I have gathered that you are not one to believe in the mystical powers of the otherworlds.”

  Her guide stopped at a gigantic wooden door framed by foreboding stone carvings.

  “I thought the Prodgy were a peaceful people,” Jetta said, taking in the nightmarish depictions of murder and death. In some areas it wasn’t just stonework used to illustrate the bloody battles but polished bone.

  “Before Rion, there was often war among the tribes. Many historians draw parallels between humans and the Prodgies of ancient times. But the Great Mother changed everything, saving Rion and unifying the people,” Amargo said, holding up his lantern to illuminate a carving of a beautiful woman with open arms and flowing hair. Her smile was subtle and creased with pain.

  “Why are her eyes closed?”

  “She gives herself blindly to those in need. She is the model of self-sacrifice and compassion.”

  Jetta noticed the woman’s odd resemblance to Triel but quickly dismissed it. No way, she thought to herself. It’s just the dark playing tricks on me.

  “Commander, I can’t go through those doors. Only you can. Death comes quickly to those that are not welcome, as described here,” Amargo said, pointing to the symbols inscribed on stone slabs.

  “What’s in there?” Jetta asked.

  “Whatever you bring with you.”

  Jetta remembered her dream, and the warning the red man had given her. She hesitated at the door. “All I want is to know the truth about Saol of Gangras. I have no wish to see this Cudal. I have no desire to possess any power.”

  “I am as eager as you, Commander, but the tablets are in that room. Find the tablet with this marking,” Amargo said, etching it into the dirt with his shoe, “and maybe we can both find closure.”

  “What’s your interest?”

  Amargo raised a bushy white brow. “Saol of Gangras is the most highly debated figure in xeno-archeological history. To discover the truth about his origins and have an exact translation of the events leading to him becoming Rion would be the most important finding in all Sentient history.”

  “The Prodgy that entrusted you never told you?”

  Amargo shook his head. “They were very guarded about him, and to this day I still don’t know why.”

  Jetta turned back to the doors and looked one last time at the Great Mother surrounded by chaos. “I’m sure they had their reasons.”

  The shadow of Amargo’s mustache cast a strange expression across his face. “It’s important for all of us, Commander, to know the truth about Saol. I believe that his
story holds the key that will let all of us—human and Sentient alike—unlock the door to everlasting peace.”

  Jetta wondered why she was really here as she studied the carved men killing each other under the painted sky. Eyes peered down from the heavens and fingers rose from the ground, pulling the murderers into the fires that burned beneath the surface. Ghostly figures of the accursed melded with the carved shadows, watching and waiting.

  “What will I use for light?”

  Amargo removed a flashlight from his coat pocket. “I was saving this for a special day; batteries are hard to come by on this planet. Here you go. Although from these writings, I don’t think you’ll need it much farther.”

  Jetta took it anyway. “What are you going to do? Just wait here?”

  “I am Summu Nura—without light. I cannot go,” Amargo said, nodding. “I will wait for you to bring back the tablets.”

  Jetta was surprised how easily the massive doors gave way, though not without protest and a draft of cold, damp air. She coughed the dust out of her lungs and swatted at the dirty air until it settled. Even then, all she could see was a dark corridor and more stairs leading downward.

  “Another underground passageway? Really?” Jetta muttered, clicking on the flashlight.

  Several minutes after losing visual contact with Amargo, she felt the beginnings of panic unpin her thoughts. The beam of her flashlight didn’t seem to give her much advanced notice of what lay ahead, putting her in mind of the endless staircase from her dream.

  I forgot how much I hate the dark, Jetta thought to herself, remembering the cramped blackness of the air ducts on Fiorah. Too many times her headlamp battery had failed, leaving her scrambling in the dark, trying to feel her way home before the duct rats summoned the courage to make her their next meal.

  She wished she hadn’t made the association. There was already something incredibly stifling about the place, compressing her thoughts and competing with her psionic connections to those closest to her. After only a few minutes, she felt crushed by the stone walls, hidden away from herself and everything she knew in a place where no one could survive.