He continued on in the ancient language she had never heard before, speaking in a strange tongue that pricked at her intuition and opened up something deep inside her.
Jahx isn’t speaking to the man, she sensed, but to the thing that possesses him.
“Wasu annu awilum mulla zul. Bara sa shu-gi.”
The man shrieked, letting loose a torrent of fire inside her heart. She matched his scream as the wall sockets exploded, showering them with sparks and shards of broken paneling. In the back of her mind she could feel the agony of DeAnders and the other crew members as the man’s reach tore through the walls and lay waste to any nearby soul.
Jaeia felt her sanity peeling away as her brother lifted his left fist under the sputtering light of the last surviving bulb. Slowly he uncurled his fingers to reveal a white paper crane, perfectly perched, wings in horizontal flight, on his palm.
The pain stopped. Except for a popping fuse and the sizzling outlets, the room fell silent. The man approached Jahx on wooden limbs. His entire arm trembled violently as he reached for the bird.
A feeling, much like when the morning sun chases away the darkest shadows of the night, overcame her as the man held the crane in his hands and, in a thick Germanic accent, whispered his first words: “I... remember.”
Jaeia collected herself off the ground, using a railing to keep herself steady until she trusted her legs again.
“My name is Jaeia Kyron. Who, may I ask, are you?”
The man looked at her with troubled eyes, holding the crane closely to his chest. “I—I am Kurt Stein. I don’t know where this is, or how I got here.”
Jaeia glanced at her brother, but his eyes had fallen shut, and his mind wouldn’t respond to her questions.
“Wait here, Dr. Stein, okay? I have to check on my crew. Everything will be okay; I will explain everything.”
“What was that?” DeAnders said, taking Jaeia’s hand and getting back on his feet.
Jaeia chose her words carefully as she helped DeAnders gather his glasses and dataclips off the floor. “That was Kurt Stein waking up from a long slumber.”
After assuring the others were okay, Jaeia returned to a befuddled Kurt Stein and her silent brother. She checked her watch. Time to go.
“We have to leave now,” she said, trying to rally her brother. “Victor will give Li the order to strike the Starbase any second now.”
“What about me?” Kurt said, looking around at all the destruction. “What is going on here?”
Jaeia was about to tell him he would be sent away somewhere safe when different words were thrust into her mouth. “You will come with us.”
What? she exclaimed through their bond, looking indignantly at her brother. Why?!
He must come.
His words felt like lead footprints stamped inside her skull. There would be no argument.
“Jahx,” she whispered aloud, taking his icy hand in hers. “This is the end, isn’t it?”
TRIEL’S HEART SANK when she realized she was the first Alliance crew member to arrive aboard the Wraith. She repeatedly reassured herself that the crew had been deprogrammed, but it didn’t quell the butterflies in her stomach.
“You got a lot of nerve showin’ up here,” Ro said, jumping down from the upper deck. He slapped the flat side of his knife against his palm and backed her into the wall. Popping up from the lower deck access panel, Cray sprang to his mate’s side.
“Yeah, a lotta nerve!”
“Lay off!” she said, shoving Ro back.
He stumbled into a support beam, but found his footing and smirked. “Oohh, I like it when they fight.”
“Me too,” Cray cackled. “Makes it all the sweeter.”
Black wings folded her into a broad chest. “Get lost, assinos.”
“Take a hike, flyboy,” Ro hissed, sticking his knife under Bacthar’s chin. “This be a long time comin’.”
Bacthar flicked the pointed tip of his wing at Ro’s eye. Screeching, Ro dropped his weapon, cradling his lacerated brow. Cray grabbed him by the arm before he could retaliate, seeing Bacthar positioning himself for another round.
“Thanks,” Triel said quietly, trying to free herself from the Orcsin’s arms, but he wouldn’t let go.
“What they made us believe you did was bad, you know. Even though it wasn’t real, it’s still hard to forget.”
“I would never mean to hurt any of you.”
Bacthar rested his head on her shoulder. “But you did. You shouldn’t have left. He hasn’t been the same since you’ve been gone.”
He finally let her go, and she turned to face him. Touching the sharp ridge of his jawline, she felt the pain of his words.
“I had to join the Alliance,” she whispered, withdrawing her hand. “I couldn’t go with Reht without knowing I had done everything I could to save the telepaths.”
Bacthar took her hand and squeezed it. His sets of red eyes blinked rapidly, as if trying to hold something back. “He’s in his den. You might want to see him before the others get here.”
Not that she had any other choice. Bacthar blocked the way to the bridge, and the other routes were no more desirable. She didn’t want to be stuck in engineering with Billy Don’t, and she certainly didn’t want to run into Ro and Cray in the galley.
With a heavy heart, she rapped on the turn-wheel door to his den.
Nothing.
“Reht?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she recited as much of a prayer as she could remember. Then, with jittery hands, cranked the wheel lock and let herself in.
Reht’s den was never clean. However, the mess was usually fresh since Mom kept tabs on the refuse buildup. But by the way things looked, even Mom hadn’t been allowed in his den for quite some time. Flies buzzed around the sticky cans of cheap liquor, and his collection of nude magazines were buried under a tipped-over shelf. Several holes had been punched through the back of one of his lounge chairs, and the liquid lamp that he cherished so dearly, beneath which they had so often made love in the blue glow of its dancing formations, was smashed to pieces, dried up and discarded in a pile of shredded clothes.
This is bad.
Pain drove into her from across the room, forcing her to close her eyes and erect a solid boundary between the two of them. She had always been attuned to him, and that part of her ached as she remembered how much better she could sense him than most people. She couldn’t deny the connection they had or the love they had shared, but as she approached him through the shoals of waste, she sensed the change.
“Starfox,” he said flatly. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He didn’t move, still facing away from her, sitting on the edge of his bed. By the way he tilted his head, he seemed to be regarding the poster of his favorite collection of erotic dancers, but she could tell by the pounding of his heart that his concentration lie elsewhere.
“Reht... I don’t even know where to begin,” she said, hoping he would turn around.
Fresh bandages caught her eye as his right hand rose to his brow. As long as she had known him, he had never allowed anyone to touch his hands, nor had he ever changed the filthy dressings.
“Ain’t no need to begin,” he said looking down at his hands. “No point in talking this mess out.”
Triel sat on the opposite side of the bed, facing away from him. She looked around the room, remembering the good times they had shared.
“What changed?” she said quietly, afraid to disturb the mess.
Reht looked over his shoulder. “We did.”
Why hasn’t Reht lit up yet? she wondered. It was very unlike him, especially in a tense situation.
Darker thoughts scratched at her mind: Maybe the Alliance did more than make him think their relationship was over or condition him to run their covert missions. Maybe they unlocked something within the dog-soldier captain that had been best left forgotten.
“I heard what happened on Old Earth,” Triel said. “I heard about Shandin.”
&nb
sp; She felt him cringe, even though she couldn’t see his face. Acid churned in his stomach, and his breathing quickened as he reacted to her words.
“Yeah,” he managed to say.
“I’d better go,” she said, getting up to leave.
He didn’t turn around. “Starfox, you’ll always be an angel to me.”
“Reht,” she said, reaching out to touch him but pulling back at the last second. “It wasn’t real. I never said those awful things. We never had that fight. I don’t want it to end this way.”
Finally, he turned around. Her heart hurt to see the heavy bags under his eyes, the sleepless nights that had reddened his eyes, the anorexia that pitted his cheeks. “Just as well. You went away, you found someone else.”
“How did you...?”
“Rumors been ‘round for a while, dear, and you just confirmed it. Not that I couldn’t see it in those beautiful blues.”
“I still love you,” she said, kneeling on the bed. She touched the scar on his face and felt his biorhythm strum against hers. “I will always love you.”
“Yeah, but it can’t go back to the way it was.” He grabbed her hand, scaring her with his force. Gasping, she feared he would strike her, but he merely kissed the tips of her fingers, his white incisors grazing her skin. “I ain’t the right man for you. In fact, ain’t no right man for you.”
“That’s not funny,” she said, trying to take back her hand.
“I ain’t being funny,” he said, holding firm. “I think that crazy little launnie is alright. I think you two make sense.”
“I do love her, with all my heart. But...” Triel hesitated. She had to tell someone. “I don’t know if she’ll ever allow herself to love me back. Not fully. There’s part of herself she’s still keeping from me.”
With a chuckle, Reht finally pulled out a stub of a cigarette from his front pocket. She saw the familiar glint in his eye. “Remind you of anyone you know?”
Triel couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. Maybe the dog-soldier captain and the young Alliance commander were not as different as she thought.
Taking her hand back, she returned to fumbling with the webbing between her fingers. “I need her right now, more than ever. All of her. I can’t do what I need to do without her.”
“She’ll come through, Starfox. For you, she’d bring down the stars.”
“And I worry about what’s going to happen to her after this is all over.”
Reht chomped on the end of his stub. “That’s one kiddo that knows how to make it to the next day. Have a little faith in her, too, okay?”
Triel hugged him tightly. She took in his smell, his aura, trying to embrace all that was good between them as she let him go. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of yourself.”
“If I don’t, you know Mom will,” he said, grinding out the stub between his fingertips. She felt his pain but knew better than to offer her services; he would refuse them anyway.
When he leaned over and kissed her cheek, Triel felt a distinct atmospheric shift, as if someone had blown in the winds of ice and fire. She reeled around, shocked to see Jetta standing in the doorway.
“Jetta!” she said, standing up abruptly. Reht nearly fell off the bed but caught himself on the edge.
“What’s going on in here?” Jetta said, her hands in tight fists.
Triel tried to stop her, but she was no match for Jetta’s speed or strength. In a split second Jetta had Reht by the collar, holding him off the ground.
Reht laughed, though the pain brought tears to his eyes. “Kid, jeez. Her heart was always yours.”
JAEIA HAD CHECKED THE last of Alliance and Liberalist soldiers onto the Wraith when DeAnders and Kaoto approached her with their two high-profile charges.
“Captain...” DeAnders began, then stopped. Jaeia could see the conflict welling in his eyes, along with the acceptance that his arguments would be futile.
“Doctor,” Jaeia said, gently gripping his forearm. “Thank you. For all you’ve done for us, especially for Jahx and Dr. Stein.”
“To find Stein, after all these years... and to send him on this mission...” DeAnders said, struggling to keep his voice down. “We still don’t know where the Ark is.”
Jaeia looked at her brother. Not much had changed since his emergence. He was still entranced by some faraway psionic state, barely readable to her, his appearance and behavior like the walking dead of Old Earth.
There’s no concrete reason to believe what I feel, she thought. Still, she couldn’t deny the pull in her heart.
“Trust me,” she said, drawing her words from her brother’s strength. “This is the only way.”
The docking bay sirens sounded, signaling the start of the countdown.
“I’ve personally briefed your team medic on your condition, as well as your sister and brother’s,” Dr. Kaoto said hurriedly. He removed a syringe from his pocket and indicated for her to push up her sleeve. Doing as he asked, she watched as he injected the booster. “Hopefully this will buy you some time,” he added softly.
“How is Dr. Stein?” Jaeia said, leaning to Kaoto’s right to catch a glimpse of him. Kurt looked every which way, eyes never lingering on one particular sight for more than a second. Every now and then he pinched himself, as to wake himself from a dream.
Kaoto and DeAnders exchanged glances. Dr. Kaoto answered with noticeable hesitation. “He’s... functional. We tried everything, but he has significant gaps in his memory. He can’t give us anything concrete about what happened to the experimental ship, how he got here, or what happened to your father.”
“We’ll have to worry about that later,” Jaeia said, motioning for the last of the soldiers to help Kurt and Jahx to the back of the ship.
“Good luck, Captain,” DeAnders said, saluting her. “May the Gods look down upon you favorably.”
Saluting back, she wavered for a moment, making sure that DeAnders and Kaoto boarded the medical frigate in the adjacent bay before sealing the ramp.
Jaeia hid her amusement as she passed by Jetta’s SMT team leader trying to discuss boarding protocol with Mom.
“You can’t pre-load an ammunitions without registering them with the—”
The Talian dropped his claws before he could finish.
Wide-eyed, the team leader took a few steps back. “Alright, uh, I—I’ll just register them myself.”
After the final boarding check, Jaeia made sure Jahx and Kurt had been secured in their seating in the galley.
“Is he... okay?” Kurt asked as Jaeia touched her brother’s pallid face.
Jaeia wasn’t sure exactly how to answer him. “He’s been through a lot.”
Kurt’s eyes narrowed, and she felt him prodding her mind. “More than you think I can understand?”
Jaeia didn’t hide her surprise. “I thought you wouldn’t have any powers left after what my brother did to you.”
“I—I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head. “I’m not quite sure what to make of myself anymore. Whatever happened while I was aboard that ship, I’m just not the same. I’m... not what I used to be.”
Looking left to right, Jaeia made sure no one else could hear their conversation before pursuing his answer. “What can you do? What can you see?”
Kurt held his head in his hands. “Your brother did away with whatever demon was inside of me when he helped me remember who I was... but something’s left over. I can hear you, beyond your words. I can feel your thoughts.”
“A demon was inside you?” Jaeia asked.
“Yes,” Kurt said. “I felt possessed by true evil; it washed away everything, made me think the world was only pain and terror. Now I feel... I feel...”
Jaeia heard his words before he spoke them. Quiet as they were, they resonated inside her skull like a scream in an empty stadium.
“I feel reborn.”
“Reborn...” Jaeia repeated, letting the word slip off her tongue.
For some reason she thought of he
r mother, prompting her to sift through the memories she had grafted from Jetta, letting them flow through her like a half-forgotten dream. On a deeper level, well beyond her conscious thoughts, she felt something important just beyond her grasp, something vital to her survival and that of her siblings.
“Where are we going?” Kurt asked, his eyes darting from soldier to soldier as the Liberalists secured themselves as best they could alongside them in the galley.
“We are going to confront a madman and stop his war on this galaxy.”
With a sigh, Kurt closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wall. Jaeia felt the psionic field ripple as he relaxed and stretched beyond himself.
“Why do you need me to go with you?”
Jaeia guessed that it was best to answer him truthfully, especially if he did have any leftover telepathic talents. “I’m not sure. I’m relying a lot on my faith these days.”
Kurt smiled but kept his eyes shut. “You’ll need more than faith to survive the jump down this rabbit hole.”
JETTA ONLY ACCEPTED the boosters from the medic after she collapsed on her way to the bridge of the Wraith. Normally she would never take medicinal enhancers, but in this case she had no choice. Even the brief scuffle with the dog-soldier captain left her drained.
As the rush invigorated her core and stimulated her senses, she tightened her jaw. All that matters now is living long enough to stop Victor.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill Reht,” Jaeia said quietly, coming up from behind her. In the back of her mind, Jetta felt her sister sift through their meeting with lingering disapproval.
“It was an honest mistake. Bruises heal,” she muttered back.
Jaeia gave her the side eye as she assumed her position in the back of the bridge near the interface consoles. As Jaeia sat down, Jetta caught a glimpse of Triel being ushered to the back of the ship by Mom. The Talian warrior, arriving too late to help his captain or the Healer, growled at Jetta before disappearing down the walkway.
Reht emerged from his den, still rubbing his neck, and descended the stairs to his command chair. He made sure to give Jetta a wink before punching in.
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