Triorion Omnibus

by L. J. Hachmeister

  (I love my Starfox)

  Words once spoken shattered into a million pieces, reassembling into a darker, hollow phrase uttered by the man he didn’t know who occupied his skin:

  (Triel is nothing to me)

  Awakening in a foreign world, reborn as a man of manufactured needs.

  Sebbs’s face came into view, as did his pack of unopened cigarettes. “They’re using you now, just like they’re using me. We’re not right anymore. We’re not ourselves.”

  Reht opened his eyes and rolled over, catching his breath. As he looked at his bandaged hands, he felt something slink away into the shadows of his mind. Suppressed emotions swelled inside his chest. He couldn’t decide if he would laugh, cry, or vomit.

  He recognized his hands.

  JAEIA’S UNIFORM SLEEVE buzzzed wildly. “What the—?”

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Jetta!” she called, but her sister didn’t hear her above the din in the Division Lockdown Lab.

  “Unlock serial B through F. Get me in the system,” Jetta shouted, trying to help the scramble of technicians trying to fix the system-wide com malfunction.

  Jaeia couldn’t grab her sister’s attention, but she couldn’t leave her recently revived brother unattended.

  The message was there for only a split second, but she knew who had sent it. An image of her tattoo accompanied the text.

  We believe.

  Chapter XII

  Unipoesa came to with Tarsha Leone standing by the window, looking down at Trigos. Even dazed he recognized the familiar behavior, having spent many long, sleepless nights gazing out at the same stars and planet below.

  Just like me...

  But as he followed her eyeline, he saw hundreds of starships amassing around key transportation hubs to and from the planet, as well as the bigger warships moving to synchronous orbit with the Alliance Central Starbase.

  Victor, he thought, reorienting to his surroundings and circumstances. When he tried to speak, he could only cough.

  “Tell me why you wanted to deprogram me,” she said, not looking at him. “Why am I so important to you? And I don’t want any gorsh-shit about how much you love me.”

  It took him a moment to piece together what had happened. The child’s song playing over the intercom—

  “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie...”

  An old Earth nursery rhyme!

  Now it made sense why Tidas Razar uttered the word ‘Blackbird.’

  That was the key to unlocking the agents.

  He touched his neck, feeling the soreness, remembering the hands wrapped around his throat.

  That saved my life, he thought, realizing that the Hub had kept its word. Agracia the Scabber would have killed me.

  He stood up on shaky legs. She wouldn’t listen to his truth, so he opted for one she would accept. “The Alliance is close to defeat,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Victor’s fleet is only hours away from destroying the last of our forces. Victor will rule this galaxy with fear. No one will try to stop him as long as he holds the only ‘weapon’ to keep the Motti at bay. That’s why we must stop him.”

  “And you need me to help you. That’s why you deprogrammed me. So I could become the commander you wanted years ago.” Tarsha faced him, her face tight with anger. “You break me down, ice me out, throw me away, then you lure me back in and expect me to want to help you, and somehow be of service to your military.”

  Smoothing back his few remaining strands of hair, Unipoesa massaged his throat, trying to regain his voice. “Even Agracia would see the need for at least a temporary allegiance. You won’t have any home to go back to if Victor is in charge.”

  Tarsha turned away from him. “I know. I’ve met him. And I know what he’s up to.”

  Unipoesa couldn’t contain his surprise. “What do you mean?”

  She afforded him a flinty glance and nothing more.

  Taking a deep breath, Damon tried a different approach. “Come with me to the meeting. Hear the intelligence reports. See for yourself the world that Victor means to create.”

  “What will happen to Bossy? What do you intend to do with her?”

  “We will keep her comfortable and appeased while you decide what you want. Even if you choose not to help the Alliance, you will both still have your freedom. After what I’ve done to you, I cannot ask anything more, but I will ask that you consider what I’m saying for the sake of the greater good.”

  Tarsha Leone returned to the window, watching one of Victor’s warships charge its torpedoes for another close-fire demonstration. “I’ve lived two different lives, but the only world I know is heartless and self-serving. If it wasn’t for Bossy, I wouldn’t even consider your proposal.”

  “Then for her, Tarsha. So the two of you don’t have to live under his thumb.”

  Tarsha pressed her hand against the glass as the warship fired its arsenal near the Alliance base, rocking its orbit.

  “For Bossy.”

  THE FINAL MEETING OF the remainder of the Starways Alliance military department chiefs featured some surprise guests. Jetta hadn’t expected her brother to awaken, nor for him to lead them back to the conference room and take a seat at the table. Additionally, Wren allowed not only Pancar to attend the briefing, but Triel and Agracia.

  “That’s not Agracia,” Unipoesa warned, stepping in front of her as she tried to approach the stone-faced young woman. Jetta noticed the fresh bruises around his neck. “All the Sleepers have been released. That is Tarsha Leone.”

  “Does she remember?”

  Unipoesa nodded and let her pass.

  Without waiting for everyone to take their seats, Wren took the podium and skipped straight to the point.

  “I trust that most of you have reviewed the correspondence between Ramak and Victor Paulstine and have come to a similar conclusion: Ramak was Victor’s pawn. We were wrong about their relationship. This makes Victor all the more deadly. If he was the one that influenced Ramak to destroy Earth over 1,100 years ago, he is just as capable of such mass atrocities today, as he is proving.”

  “One question still remains,” Wren said, pulling up an image of the same ancient ship Jetta had seen in the vision with her mother. The security video footage showed three people boarding the ship in a panic, their faces unrecognizable. “Why did Victor want the launch specs and signature on an experimental ship in a secret military weapons development warehouse?”

  Jetta studied the data filtering through the hologram, comparing the data with her twin through their dual perspectives. As she analyzed the possibilities, her brother’s mind slipped into hers, and the room disappeared.

  Remember, Jetta.

  Her mother’s memory of the events that led to their escape on the experimental ship unfolded before her, illuminating the gaps.

  “Those people in the video... Oh my Gods,” Jaeia whispered.

  How could we be so blind?

  Still caught between the memory and the present, Jetta shared their revelation. “Victor thought that experiment was a failure. It wasn’t until my siblings and I showed up several hundred years later that he realized it had worked.”

  “It was our tattoo,” Jaeia added. “He recognized our parents’ secret signature.”

  “He wants to retrieve that ship. He wants to extrapolate the jump information and reproduce that same jump.”

  “He wants to travel to the same place where we supposedly got our powers,” Jaeia finished. “He thinks he can gain them, too.”

  “But he didn’t get the datawand, did he?” Wren asked.

  All eyes went to Tarsha. “I gave it to Shandin. He didn’t have it for long, but it might have been long enough for him to transmit the data. We damaged the datawand, hoping it would slow them down.”

  “We cannot make any assumptions, then,” Wren concluded. “As far as we know, Victor Paulstine has the same information we do. Chief, has your team picked up any signals?” he said, turning to the Msiasto Mo, chief of military in
telligence.

  Msiasto shook his head. “It’s a needle in the haystack right now.”

  “Look,” Jetta said, “it just makes it more urgent that we stop Victor. As far as we know, he could already have that ship in his docks.”

  “If he went over to Cudal,” Triel added solemnly, “he would return with unstoppable powers. No fleet, no matter how big or strong, would be able to defeat him.”

  Jetta looked over at her brother. Head bowed and eyes closed, Jahx remained silent. Dr. DeAnders stood behind him, monitoring him constantly with the bioscanner, a worry line engraved in his forehead.

  Finally, Jetta broke the silence. “I need to get inside Victor’s palace. Once I can face him, I can stop him.”

  “Commander, I must object,” DeAnders said, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “Not one of you is in any condition to leave this Starbase, let alone engage in combat.”

  Seeing her own image reflected in her sister’s mind, Jetta felt a surge of anger at her debilitated appearance. “I am the only one who can stop him.”

  “You’re going to need help getting to him,” Tarsha said, chiming in. All eyes turned once again to the former Command Development Program’s protégé. “If you let the rest of the Starways know what he’s up to, you’ll have a media frenzy, and perhaps a few more allies.”

  “What do you mean?” Wren asked.

  Tarsha gave Jetta a quick glance, allowing her an impression of her unspoken words.

  We’re even now.

  The former cadet kept her emotionless tone. “Before I left with the dog-soldier crew, I cracked into Shandin’s warehouse network and read his files. It looks like Shandin was working for Victor and delivering human cargo to specific drop points. When I accounted for the Motti’s flight pattern toward the Homeworlds, I found a match.”

  The conference room instantly filled with questions and shouting.

  “What does this mean?” someone yelled over the clamor.

  “It means that Victor is feeding the Motti,” Tarsha replied.

  Jetta knew exactly what it meant. “He is in league with them. So his ‘secret weapon’ is a hoax. That’s why our teams couldn’t figure it out.”

  For some reason she thought she heard Jahx agree in the back of her head, but when she looked to him, his eyes were still closed, his body motionless.

  “We have no proof,” Wren said. “It would sound like a desperate accusation. Besides, if he is in league with the Motti, he would have their power at his disposal.”

  “But what about these? I sent you my report,” Pancar said, laying down the intracranial implants he had gotten out of Shandin’s head onto the table. “He seems to outfit his most important minions with these things. We could use that to our advantage.”

  Jetta closed her eyes as the missing pieces fell into place. Before she could speak, she coughed up a gob of bright red blood.

  “I know what we have to do.”

  WHEN THE MEETING CONCLUDED, Jahx rose and made his way, eyes closed and feet unsteady, to another destination. Jetta, Jaeia, and the medical team headed by Dr. DeAnders followed closely.

  “What is he doing?” DeAnders asked.

  Jetta didn’t know how to make DeAnders understand. “We need to follow his lead.”

  In complete silence, Jahx took them down to the containment holding bays that served as Kiyiyo and Cano’s temporary housing. The two massive wolves paced anxiously in their makeshift pens, alternating between growling and whining.

  Jetta watched her brother stop in front of the cell and stand motionless, eyes still closed.

  Why did he lead us here? Jaeia said, pressing her confusion into her sister’s mind.

  But Jetta didn’t question her brother’s motives. She felt his reasoning like the beat of her heart or the air in her lungs. Right then, they needed to be there.

  “Release the force-field,” Jetta commanded the attending soldier.

  “Wait here,” she said to Dr. DeAnders and the medical team. No one argued.

  Because of their size, the wolves had been put in super-steel pens that had been augmented with a static force-field. Part of her understood the precautionary measures, but as soon as she could, she would do whatever necessary to convince the authorities to free them.

  The soldier dropped the force-field so she could approach the wolves. Kiyiyo and Cano both crawled toward her with their ears folded back. When she reached out to scratch their chins, they flopped onto their backs and exposed their bellies, wagging their tails and covering her with long licks.

  “Don’t worry, guys, you won’t stay here long,” she told them softly and tousled their fur. “Soon you’ll be back running through your forests, free from any owner, free to hunt and play as you like. I promise this to you with all that I have left. I will make it safe for you to go home.”

  “You made quite the impression on these two,” Jaeia commented, finally gathering the nerve to stand by her side.

  Jetta smiled. “I get them. I may not get people sometimes, but I get these guys. Maybe I’m just an animal at heart.”

  “You beat me to the punchline,” Jaeia said with a smirk.

  “Always the comedian. Here,” Jetta said, nudging her forward. “This one is Kiyiyo. The one with the white neck is Cano.”

  Jaeia hesitated at first, especially when the two of them took to sniffing her outstretched hand, but when Kiyiyo licked her tentatively, she relaxed and gave them both a pat.

  Sticking her head through the bars, Jetta buried her head in Kiyiyo’s fur. For a moment she lost herself in his thick black coat, letting her mind stretch out, forgetting her surroundings.

  She let out a burst of joyous laughter, feeling herself running on four legs over soft grass and through cold mountain springs, legs never tiring, stopping only when the sun slipped behind the peaks so she could howl among the moonlit rocks.

  “That is so beautiful,” Jaeia whispered. “They have such rich memories.”

  Jetta pulled back and blushed. “Yeah. I love the way they are, the way they think and feel. Everything. It’s just... real. I would give anything to help them, and to save their brothers and sisters on Old Earth.”

  “This is worth fighting for, then?” Jaeia said, tugging playfully on Cano’s ear.

  “Of course,” Jetta said. “Why do you phrase it like that?”

  Jaeia didn’t take her eyes off the wolf. “It’s just you’ve never been one to—how can I put this without you getting mad at me...?”

  Jetta crossed her arms and pursed her lips.

  “You’ve never been one to care about something like this before. This is big.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The wolves give you a reason to fight for the Starways,” Jaeia clarified. “Before it’s ultimately been fighting for me and Jahx—your family—and maybe Triel. This is new.”

  As Jetta rubbed Kiyiyo’s muzzle, she thought about what her sister had said.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said. “But they’ve never hurt me, not like how other people have. And I can hear them, clearly. They don’t hide from me. They don’t lie.”

  “You can trust them,” Jaeia finished.

  “Yes,” Jetta said, scratching Cano’s neck.

  “Like you can trust me?”

  Jetta’s breath hitched in her chest. She thought about all the reasons Jaeia didn’t have to trust her anymore, and the guilt stabbed her in the gut. “Yes.”

  Jaeia was silent a moment. In the back of her mind, Jetta could hear her carefully considering her words.

  “Maybe Jahx brought us here so you could be reminded of what you love right before we have to face someone that makes you forget.”

  Jetta knotted her fingers in Kiyiyo’s fur and held on tightly. “Maybe,” she whispered back, then gulped back the lump in her throat and faced her sister. She took Jaeia’s hand in hers and let down her guard. “But I never needed to come here to know that.”

  TARSHA LEONE DISCOVERED that Unipo
esa hadn’t been exaggerating when he told her that most of the Central Starbase had been abandoned after Victor’s fleet positioned themselves around Trigos. As she passed by the corridor windows overlooking Trigos, she saw the few scattered Alliance starships available for the impending assault. Our chances are slim at best, she thought grimly.

  At least it was easy to find Bossy. No traffic, no security checks. She didn’t even need an escort, though Unipoesa had insisted; she could have just as easily followed the trail of booze and destruction.

  Pushing aside a broken chair, she entered the mess hall. She spotted the tiny dark horse camped out on top of a stack of tables, surrounded by discarded jugs of her stolen Mississippi Diesel and other Alliance private stock. This can’t be good.

  A few soldiers took up station around the exits, but they held their position, even as Bossy gave instructions on performing a proper chokehold to the unfortunate soldier she had sequestered.

  At least Unipoesa was smart enough to let Bossy have her way, she thought as the soldier’s face turned purple in Bossy’s arms.

  “See, you gotta really clamp off the blood supply, or they’ll never sleep right!” Bossy exclaimed, tightening her headlock as the soldier tapped her arm repeatedly.

  Deep down, she told herself she should find Bossy’s warped way of flirting funny, but she couldn’t. At least not with her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest.

  “Hey, he’s not fighting back,” Tarsha pointed out.

  “Ehhh, they’re all giant puntes,” Bossy said, letting him go. The soldier rolled over and coughed violently until he caught his wind. With shaky limbs, he climbed down the mountain of tables and stumbled back to his post.

  “You done here, yet? I’m bored. This place is lame,” Bossy said.

  Tarsha took her time climbing up the stack of tables and sat across from Bossy, hoping that her weight would balance them out and lessen the likelihood of the entire creation collapsing.