The same desperation and confusion that seized her in that moment returned. What do I do?
Triel gasped. “I had to save you, so I...”
But she couldn’t put words to her thoughts. She recalled allowing herself to be overcome by her feelings, much the way she had when she would Fall, but this time she shifted her focus.
“Jetta, was I really glowing?”
The commander nodded. “It was so beautiful,” she whispered.
“But that would mean...”
“Check this out,” Agracia yelled. “Working terminals!”
Bossy and Agracia whooped as they recharged the stasis cells and initiated a primary diagnostic cycle.
“No!” Jetta yelled across the catwalk. “That will cause a massive power drain! You’ll kill them!”
Agracia shrugged her shoulders. “Oops.”
“Skucheka. We don’t have time for this,” Jetta said through gritted teeth, pointing to the vent shaft where they had descended into the cryobank. Triel could see the three of them had made the effort to blockade the entrance with furniture and lab equipment. “Bossy discharged a few 20-20s, but they’ll sniff us out and find a new way in. We need to keep moving.”
Jetta grabbed the helmets off the floor and tossed Triel hers.
“We don’t need protection in here?” Triel asked.
“No,” Jetta said, putting hers on. “There’s enough radiation shielding in here to protect against direct nuclear strikes. That’s one of the reasons these people are still alive. But we have to get going.”
Jetta saw her hesitation. “What is it?”
Tentatively, Triel reached out and touched Jetta’s stomach. Even through Jetta’s biosuit she could feel the inflammation of Jetta’s unhealing wound. Flashbacks of her vision clouded her waking eye, and she retracted her hand.
“Nothing.”
Jetta squared her shoulders to her. “Don’t lie.”
“I just...” she started, unsure of what she was going to say. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jetta.”
Even with the helmet blocking her facial expressions, Triel could feel the warmth radiate from her friend.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jetta said, taking her hand. She held onto the Healer for a moment longer before releasing her and grabbing what was left of their gear. “Come on, we have to find a way out.”
“Jetta,” Triel said as the commander lead her down an aisle of cryotubes. People of all ages, races, and genders stood erect in frozen slumber, their dreams sinuous chords of foreign tunes. “Can you hear them?”
Jetta picked up her pace at the question. “Yes. Come on, Agracia! Bossy!”
The two Scabbers shouted profanities at her, but as the lab quaked, they quickly caught up.
“These people,” Triel said between breaths, following Jetta to the back of the cryobank where a red-hashed pressure door marked their only promise of exit. “They might know something that could help us.”
Jetta stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?”
“What if they knew something about what happened to Earth?”
Jetta turned around and took off her helmet. A look of fear and excitement widened her eyes. “Maybe... no. Impossible.”
“What?” Triel said as Bossy and Agracia came up behind them.
Jetta’s brow furrowed as she debated something in her head. “I know it sounds crazy, but I might have family in here. I saw something in my last vision. My mother saying her mother—my grandmother—was in here.”
Agracia swung her flashlight back and forth. “There’s hundreds of human popsicles in here. Good luck finding Granny, Doc.”
The structure rumbled violently, sending the four of them to the floor.
“Come on,” Jetta said, ramming her helmet back on. The rest of them followed suit as they sprinted towards the red-hashed door.
Jetta shouted at the top of her lungs while the structure continued to quake. “Hurry,” she said, cranking open the valve-release to the door. “Get inside!”
The four of them crowded inside the emergency elevator, but all of the backup functions and controls remained dark. Without waiting for the Jetta or Triel, Agracia and Bossy pushed open the top hatch and began their ascent.
Jetta secured her flashlight and her gear bag on the back of her belt before helping the Healer to the top of the car.
“Jetta, I can’t...” Triel said, seeing the endless ascent. The access ladder and a web of cables would prove difficult to ascend under normal circumstances, but impossible given the extent of her fatigue.
Jetta took her hand firmly. “You can do this. You will do this. I will help you.”
“No, Jetta,” Triel said, pulling away as the commander tried to wrap her arm around her. “You can’t carry me. I know how much you hurt, how tired you are. I can’t ask that of you.”
The walls shook, and the surrounding structure groaned from the stress.
“There is no time!” Jetta ripped off her helmet and held her by the shoulders. “Listen to me—I know you don’t believe it, but you are no ordinary Prodgy. You are phenomenally special. Whoever or whatever the Great Mother is, I saw her inside you. Now please—for me, for your people—climb!”
Jetta tried to hoist her up, but the Healer’s arms couldn’t support her weight. “I’m so sorry, Jetta.”
Ever since she first awakened from cryostasis she had been denying the gravity of her fatigue, and compounding it with their restless journey across the stars. Furthermore, she couldn’t believe what Jetta was saying, or what she had witnessed inside the Temple of Exxuthus. If it was true, if what her ghostly visions of Arpethea were authentic, then it meant she would have to harm the one she loved.
“Let me go, Jetta!” Triel said, trying to wrestle away from her grip.
“No!” Jetta tackled her and held her against the wall. “I will not let you die here.”
Before she had a chance to protest, Jetta removed Triel’s helmet, and pressed her forehead into the Healer’s. Triel breathed her in, feeling their heartbeats synchronize and her catecholamine levels drop. Jetta drew closer, allowing their lips to touch.
“Please, Triel—”
“Jetta—”
“I can’t do this without you.”
Jetta’s moved quicker than she expected. In one swoop, she shouldered the Healer and began the climb.
“Oh, Jetta...,” Triel said, finally relinquishing control.
As the structure quaked, debris rained down on them from above. Metal sheeting broke off from the interior wall, narrowly missing them before clattering to the bottom of the shaft.
With every movement, Triel could feel the extreme exhaustion consuming her companion, and the stubborn resolve that refused to give in.
If I can’t climb, I can at least help her.
Triel removed her gloves and placed her hands inside Jetta’s suit.
“What are you doing?” Jetta shouted above the commotion. Her ungloved hand slipped, slicing the pink tissue of her palm neatly against metal wires. Blood painted the cables and her suit, jeopardizing her hold.
“Helping the only way I can,” Triel said, clinging tightly.
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to fall inside her friend. The same black iron construct of Jetta’s will obstructed her complete passage, but Triel sensed a change.
There might be way in, she thought, testing the surface. Cracks and fissures compromised the integrity of the barrier, worn by time and pressure. The Healer gently wiggled her way through a larger split until she came out on the other side. Assaulted with the suffocating whirlwind that Jetta locked away, it took everything she had not to retract.
(Doubt. Loathing. Disgust.)
She didn’t know if it would work; she had never heard of anything like what she was about to attempt, but the action felt natural, and she had to do something.
Oh Jetta, Triel thought, I am here. Feel me inside you.
Triel let go.
JAHX FOUN
D HIMSELF on a grassy knoll overlooking rows of headstones. Not a single animal scurried about, or bird took to the twilight sky, save the shadowy wisps reminiscent of a tail or feather. Even the rolling breeze, or sway of the Japanese maples, did not disturb the quiet of the cemetery.
Half-forgotten memories shuddered and faded all around him pulsating motes, too grave to be remembered by the one who created this perdition. As much as he wanted to see them reactualized, Jahx kept his focus on the man facing away from him, toward the amber horizon.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Jahx said, approaching him cautiously.
The man didn’t acknowledge him, still hypnotized by his own delusion.
Curious, Jahx followed the man’s line of sight. In the distance Jahx saw a crowd of mourners surrounding two fresh gravesites. A priest conducted the ceremony, but his words came as empty sounds in a lifeless world.
“Please, you must hear me,” Jahx said, trying to capture his attention.
He didn’t have much time. Somewhere, off in the physical world, his life dangled by a thread inside the Grand Oblin’s body. Without knowing how much longer the old man could survive his inhabitance, he had to act now, make the connection before it was too late.
“My name is Jahx Kyron. I have come to help you.”
The man turned to him, eyes swollen with tears. “You can’t help me. No one can help me.”
“Josef, there is still hope. Not all is lost.”
The crowd around the headstones disappeared and the landscape changed, pulling them forward to the gravesite. Rain fell from the somber, gray sky in icy sheets.
The man kneeled down in front of the gravesites, hands and fingers extended but hanging in the air, unsure and frightened.
Jahx read the headstones. Edina Jägerhon Stein. Kurt Josef Stein.
Wife. Son.
“You were deceived,” Jahx said, trying to be as soothing as possible, especially at such a dangerous juncture. “You were made to believe they were dead. It was a lie.”
The man smashed his fists against the headstones. “I will have my revenge.” He screamed, tearing at the skin on his face.
The sky turned black, and the horizon blazed with an ominous white light.
“Listen to me!” Jahx shouted, the world shrinking down around them. “You were deceived. Ramak was out to destroy you!”
The man stumbled to his feet, his skin crisping under an unseen heat source. He shrieked, his voice garbled and shredded. “With eyes open they burn!”
Jahx shielded his eyes against the flash of light that preceded the thunderous explosion. With a heavy heart he lowered his arm, seeing the white mushroom cloud growing in the distance.
Jahx turned away. The man continued to hiss and scream, despairing at his failure as he transformed into something hideous and unrecognizable.
I have to reach him, Jahx thought. It is our only hope.
Withdrawing from the sphere of memory, he promised himself to return as he faded back into the lonely interstice of limbo.
But how? he realized, sensing the faint tether that kept him from transitioning to the next plane.
My sisters, he called. You must save Josef Stein.
AS UNCOMFORTABLE AS it was for both of them to have the Healer draped over her shoulder, Jetta couldn’t figure any other way to carry her weary friend up the long ascent to the top of the elevator shaft.
(So tired.)
Not that she had much stamina left herself. Running on the fumes of desperation, Jetta forced her ragged body into labor, but with each centimeter gained, her arms and legs felt less responsive to her demands. She poured everything she had to keep each hand reaching above the other, pulling them up the canopy of broken cables and ladders toward the faint light at the end of the shaft.
(Infinitely far away.)
Gentle hands slipped inside her suit, jarring her concentration.
What’s she doing?
“Come on, Doc!” Agracia yelled down.
Jetta spotted the Scabber pair about fifty meters above, dodging falling debris and ascending via the emergency brake track system.
(We’re not going to make it.)
Gritting her teeth, Jetta bit back the thought. No. I have to get back to Jaeia—and Jahx. I have the answers we need on the datawand, I’m sure of it.
Triel’s warm hands pressed against her skin.
Don’t waste your energy trying to heal me, Jetta thought. But this felt different than when she managed her wounds. The Healer went deeper, traveling farther into her viscera, much like what she did in the safe house.
Triel’s voice called out from within: ...feel me inside you...
The tingling started in her belly and flowed like rushing water throughout her limbs. Jetta saw herself as an empty vessel, being filled with a seismic energy source.
“Triel, what are you doing?” Jetta shouted above the quake.
The Healer’s essence stretched across their two beings, a wonderful electricity that charged her senses and her muscles.
She’s draining herself to help me! Jetta thought. Panicked, she could do nothing to stop the Healer. —Unless I risk letting go of the cables.
Even then, blood ran down her exposed palm, drenching her biosuit and making the ascent slippery. If she lost hold now, they would plunge to their deaths.
No, not for me, she thought. “Please, Triel—stop—don’t do this!”
Tears slid down Jetta’s cheeks as she pulled them up meter after meter while opposing forces fought for control. She felt revitalized, complete, and yet she resisted, not allowing herself to relish the feeling for fear of consuming her friend.
“Here!” Agracia shouted. Part of a semi-conduit scraped down the interior wall, sending sparks flying into the shaft. The Scabber ducked out of the way and then extended her arm. “Give me your hand!”
Hurry! Jetta screamed at herself.
Adjusting her body weight, Jetta tried to swing them to the right so that Agracia could reach their cable and pull them the rest of the way to the upper platform.
“No!” Bossy shouted, wrenching Agracia away. “They’re gonna screw us!”
Jetta couldn’t hear the rest of the argument above the rattling and groans of reinforced steel splitting apart. As she grappled with the cables with the last of their shared strength, Agracia and Bossy came to blows. Agracia was no match for Bossy, but it wasn’t a contest meant to be settled by force.
Sweat poured down her forehead, and her arms and legs shook, a terrible knowing eating away at her consciousness; every second that passed dragged them closer and closer to death.
Can’t hold on any longer—
Only one way to survive; she had to accept the last of Triel’s strength.
I will not hurt her.
Jetta’s hands began to give, and the two of them slid down the cable. Her exposed hand screamed in pain as the twisted wires cut deeper into the raw wound.
I will not let go.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Jetta forced every last ounce of her strength into holding tight, but the added weight of her friend and the fatigue of her body proved insurmountable.
Soft lips pressed against hers, breaking her from her pain. Jetta tasted Triel on her tongue and felt long fingers tracing the jagged scars on her stomach.
“Let me inside you...” Triel whispered.
(No,) Jetta replied. (I will not let go.)
“Then we will both die...”
Blue eyes, the color of a steely winter sky, connected with hers. She felt the Healer’s voice inside her chest. “Save yourself, for me, for your brother and sister.”
“No!” Jetta shouted, commanding failing limbs to hold tight.
But it was no use. She had pushed too hard for too long, and her strength was sapped.
No. Not now—not when I have the answers!
Her arms and legs spasmed.
She let go.
AGRACIA DEFLECTED BOSSY’S attacks. “Stop it! Quit!”
>
Her pint-sized companion wouldn’t take it and slapped her across the chest. “They’re going to screw us. Don’t you get it? She’s the Slaythe—the chakking destroyer of the universe! There’s no way in hell that she’s going to let us go. We got what we needed—let’s get outta here!”
Agracia rolled away and kicked Bossy squarely in the hip. “I said lay off!”
“Chak you, Gracie!” Bossy said, slamming her fist into the wall just shy of her head. “This isn’t you. You would never chak over your best friend for a chakking Skirt!”
Agracia removed her helmet and cradled her head in her hands. No, this isn’t me—
(Tarsha Leone?)
—She would never help a Skirt, never risk their safety for someone with a reputation like Jetta’s, even if she had helped her.
A lean girl with red highlights in her brown hair stood before her, a fragile smile trembling on her lips. “Thanks, Tarsha.”
She popped open the collar of her uniform, still damp and ringed with sweat from the last Endgame match. “I just can’t keep these numbers straight anymore,” she whispered, half-heartedly retying her hair back in place. Loose strands fell out, but she did nothing to collect them.
“Me too,” she heard herself say, mouthing the words more than speaking them so that her friend could understand her over the hum of the bathroom dryers.
Syra. That’s her name, she thought, remembering the brilliant tactician.
One of the few other female cadets left, Syra proved to be a cunning rival on the practice mats. However, just like Tarsha, Unipoesa drilled her hard, and it was beginning to show in her schoolwork.
An old longing pulled at her heart. As much as she wanted to be friendly with other students, the Command Development Program’s design pitted them against each other at every opportunity. Helping each other with schoolwork or lessons was strictly forbidden, and since all contact was monitored, no relationships, even platonic ones, ever developed.
Except for ours.
Tarsha had always liked Syra, and the two of them had kept their friendship secret since they were little. To an outsider it would have seemed strange and nothing like a normal relationship, but in the Command Development Program it was the best they could do. A passing glance in study hall or a disguised high-five during drills. Lingering around each other’s bunks before lights-out and pretending to exchange class schedules. They were supposed to be rivals, and even though Tarsha was the top student in the program, after Li, Syra was next in line.
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