“Jetta,” Jaeia tried again, trying to bring her sister back.
Jetta’s eyes rolled back, her lips forming words without sound. Too far away to reach, Jaeia didn’t dare try to seek her out in that dark place.
Jahx, help me! Jaeia pleaded, feeling phantom fingers prying into her own skull.
“Jetta,” Triel said, staggering toward them, her face contorted with pain. “Jetta, stop—wake up—you have to stop this! You’re hurting us!”
Jaeia slumped onto a pile of papers. With one last effort she grabbed onto Triel’s ankle and held fast.
HUNGERING FOR THE NEXT nightmare, Jetta didn’t care who she captured next.
“Jetta,” a voice called to her. “Enough.”
Her vision spun away from shadows, the ruins of shattered psyches, until she found herself hovering in a place of shifting gray half-tones and shooting stars.
“Jahx?” she asked, recognizing his presence.
Her brother emerged from the fluctuating mist, his blue eyes shining like lighthouse beacons against the gray. “Jetta, with all that’s been shown to you, how can you still not believe?”
“What?” she said, picking herself off the floor.
Jahx plucked a hair from her head.
“Hey!” Jetta exclaimed.
Pulling on the hair, Jahx stretched it until spanned farther than the eye could see. It unraveled in strands of light, color, and sound until she was surrounded by all of her memories.
“What do you see?” Jahx asked.
Jetta looked around, seeing flashbacks of their youth on Fiorah, their time aboard the Dominion vessels, and other moments from her past. The images came from three different angles, expanding outward like a ripple in the water, until the memory’s synergy took on a unique form of its own.
The experiences she had stolen unfolded alongside what she knew, compounding her point of view, interweaving with and binding her realities. She saw the human man she had killed at the refueling station and the memories she had unintentionally grafted from him, but this time she did more than see through his eyes. She felt his heart beat in her own chest, his blood running through his veins; his skin became her own. The same thing happened with Edgar Wallace, and Sir Amargo, and every person she had ever stolen from, until she no longer saw their worth in their knowledge or memories.
Reeling backward, Jetta tried to stabilize herself. “Jahx, what are you doing?”
“Look, Jetta. See.”
She dared to look again, this time seeing the totality of what she knew and what she had learned, and all that she had chosen not to see.
“Jahx,” she whispered, realizing her own blindness. What she had seen before was no more than a tangle of lives, frayed and knotted, with no recognizable shape. Now she saw the rich color and texture of a tapestry she never knew existed, entwining countless souls in an infinite universe.
“So beautiful,” she said, reaching out.
But Jahx pulled her back before she could make contact. He pointed at a discarded scrap of paper lying face down on the swirling floor. Jetta picked it up and read the inscription hurriedly scribbled on the back in the broad, barely coordinated strokes of a child. “Me...”
Jetta turned it over and gasped.
“Death has given you clarity. You have already seen the face of suffering,” Jahx said. Jetta recognized the drawing, the hideous face of the beast she had seen when Triel had taken her life. “Now you must accept its presence as a part of you. You must choose what you see, and what you allow yourself to feel, and what you will make real. Have you been given a blessing—or a curse?”
The dimensions of his words expanded within her soul, Jahx’s greatest gift blossoming inside her. She dropped the drawing and looked at her own hands.
“I never knew...”
JETTA AWOKE TO FIND herself wrapped in Triel’s arms, the Healer whispering prayers in her native tongue. Jaeia was there too, lying on her side and clinging to Triel’s leg. Nearby, Jahx swayed in place, still caught in whatever limbo claimed him.
“Hey,” Jetta said, prying herself loose. It took her only a moment to remember what she had done. With more urgency she freed herself and stumbled to her feet. Propelling herself forward on anything sturdy, she assessed the damage she had caused. Most of her SMT and the Liberalist soldiers were dazed but still alive. Some were lucid enough to still follow her orders.
Normally she would have been too ashamed to look her siblings or the Healer in the face, but Jahx had shown her what she had needed to see.
I must complete my mission, she thought, more determined than ever.
“Those that are able, follow me. This ends now,” Jetta said.
That’s when he appeared. The lone surviving monitor on a nearby office desk flickered to life with the grainy image of Victor.
“Warchild. Come down, leave your troops behind. I am ready for you. Are you ready for me?”
One of the elevators near the stairwell parted its doors with a pleasant ding.
Jetta offered Jaeia a hand up. “Let’s go.”
“Jetta...” Jaeia said, still holding on after she had risen. Her fear and uncertainty created a suffocating miasma in the air. “Are you ready for this?”
Falling back into their bond, Jetta followed her sister’s thought process: She had just witnessed Jetta do something wonderful by enlightening the soldiers outside the tower, and then revert to older, darker habits in her weakened state. She wonders what path I’ll take with Victor.
Jetta slung Jahx’s arm around her shoulder and held him by the waist. For some reason she thought of their days on Fiorah, and all the times Jaeia refused to play rock dice with her and Jahx; she always hated to gamble.
“This is it, Jae. It’s time to roll the dice.”
IT WASN’T UNTIL TARSHA Leone set foot on the Star Runner’s bridge that the grim reality hit her: I’ve never engaged in a live battle. Not even once, in all my years of training in the Command Development Program...
Admiral Unipoesa caught sight of her as he barked commands to the crew. The Republic Fleet, scattered but not disabled, was sporadically returning fire.
“Position alpha-two. Cover those fighters. Helmsmen, take us about, quarter thrusters, lock missiles on their lead warship.”
He motioned her to his side, and she joined him with obvious reluctance.
“That dog-soldier Liiker was able to disable their commanders, but they’re still putting up quite the fight,” he briefed her. “We need to hold this position until the ground teams can secure their command ops.”
Tarsha thought of Jetta, and the impossible task of breaking into Victor Paulstine’s base of operations. Buying them time might not be enough, even with all the Kyron siblings and a Prodgy Healer working together with two specialized combat teams.
Made uncomfortable by her own realization, Tarsha readjusted the top of the Alliance-issued uniform. The last time she had worn a military uniform seemed like lifetimes ago. She didn’t quite understand her own compliance in wearing it, only that she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t think any of the Alliance crew would take her seriously in her Old Earth rags, but the starchy material didn’t feel right on her skin.
Why did I come here? she thought. I don’t belong here.
Just as her nerves were about to get the better of her, the Endgame holographic module situated in the center of the war room caught her eye. The Republic Fleet, represented in red, surrounded the tiny contingent of blue Alliance starships on all sides. Despite their numbers, it took her only seconds to see the gaps in the enemy defenses that Unipoesa had missed.
“You see something?” Unipoesa said, reading her correctly.
Tarsha hesitated. The Scabber in her knew better than to offer her assistance without creating an insurance policy for her freedom and her reward. She looked at him stolidly. “I can help you—on one condition.”
The admiral didn’t hide his impatience. “What?”
Tarsha removed a shock
collar she had stolen from the tactical lockers in the armaments department and dangled it in front of his horrified face.
“You wanted me to believe I was a thief,” Tarsha said. “So I became the best one on Earth.”
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“Wear it,” she said, holding up the remote in the other hand. “You can take it off when this is all over and Bossy and I are safely on our way.”
The admiral motioned for the guards to back down. Pressing his knuckles down on the edge of the module, he leaned into her face. “You’re here to fight a war, Tarsha, not to make deals.”
“Dear father,” she said, not budging despite the old stink of his breath. “You want to win this war?” She paused just long enough so that she was sure he saw her smile. “Know when you’re defeated.”
JETTA WOULD NEVER HAVE even considered stepping aboard an elevator sent by any other enemy but Victor.
He wants me alive and fully intact, she thought. The soldiers they had battled to get inside the capital skyscraper was Victor toying with his prey, nothing more. He would never stand for cheaply harming me without the thrill of destroying my soul first.
The elevator doors parted on the lowest level of the tower, at what Jetta estimated as at least seven kilometers underground.
I’m impressed, she thought, seeing the modifications Victor had made. Once an intricate maze of catacombs, the government of the Holy Cities had incorporated the sacred grounds into their capital building. Victor, of course, had stripped the religious monument and converted it into a reinforced, fully functional command post.
The arched communications center was dark, lit only by the blinking lights of the abandoned terminals. Jetta took her time, letting her senses adjust. The air smelled musty and old, carrying with it the tangy stench of preservatives despite the invasion of high-tech equipment and ventilation systems. The place felt empty and desolate, like a tomb.
“They’re all gone,” Jaeia observed. “Victor must have ordered their retreat.”
But Jetta thought otherwise. Victor is paranoid enough to have implanted his command post operatives with intracranial devices, even the terminal techs. Billy Don’t would have deactivated them all when they broadcast his voice across the Starways, leaving Victor stranded by himself.
But how could he have removed all those bodies so quickly?
Jetta checked her sleeve. She had instructed the combat teams to find alternate routes down, avoiding the elevator shaft, knowing that Victor would have it rigged if any of her soldiers were to try to descend. Despite her attempts to contact them, her sleeve readout only displayed static.
“Too much interference,” Jetta surmised, tapping it with her finger.
We’re on our own.
Jetta huddled with the others. She had only wanted to take Jaeia with her, but Triel had insisted, and she couldn’t keep Jahx from following her. Kurt was also adamant about coming, and against her better judgment, Jetta allowed him to. No time for arguments, she thought as her rational and intuitive sides warred within her. I’m just going to have to take a chance.
Jetta... a voice called from the dark.
Jetta snapped her head to the left, but no one was there. The voice came again, this time from the right.
... I have waited so long to taste your soul...
She jumped when a hand touched her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Jaeia asked.
Flipping up her visor, she wiped down her face as best she could. “Yeah,” she said under her breath, sweeping the hallway with the light on the end of her gun. “Let’s keep moving.”
Jetta turned back when she noticed that Kurt wasn’t following. Neither was Jahx.
“We have to keep moving,” Jetta said, trying to get them to budge.
“Do you know what’s down there?” Kurt asked, his mind loud with panic.
Jetta looked down the darkened hallway. The action room’s red-lit sign glowed in the shadows ahead.
Breath hitching in her chest, Jetta anticipated his words before he said them.
“Terror... and pain,” Kurt whispered.
Jetta looked to Triel. The Prodgy Healer seemed equally disturbed, her body stiff and rigid, as if expecting a blow.
“What do you sense?” Jetta asked her.
Triel slowly shook her head. “Something that should never have been.”
“We’re all together,” Jaeia said, drawing her firearms and turning off the safety. “This is the best shot we have.”
Jetta took her brother’s cold hand, his tension seeping through her glove. “Come on, Jahx. We have to go now.”
Jetta led them down the hall. As a precaution she gave her second firearm to Kurt and her compact shock wand to Triel. Even in an empty hallway, she didn’t trust the shadows.
As they neared the action room door, Jetta spied the cameras perched along the wall, noting their steadfast, blinking attention to her movement. Victor’s watching.
(He’s been watching me all along.)
(He knows me.)
(He sees inside me.)
The action room door opened in a circular pattern, like a dilating pupil. Holding her breath, she stepped through the eyelet into the brightly lit, white-walled command control center. Technicians, still linked into their mikes, lay slumped across their stations, and decorated officers hung limply from the observation railing.
“Look,” Jaeia whispered.
Piled high in the corner were the missing technicians from the communications center. A few of them had similar scars around their orbital sockets, but most had been picked apart, their uniforms stained with bits of gray matter and sticky clumps of blood. Sickened, Jetta turned away. As she did, something skittered away in her peripheries.
Jaeia saw it too. Jetta, did you see... do you feel...?
Her twin didn’t have to finish the thought. The discordant energy she felt confirmed her worst fears.
Stay focused, she reminded herself, swallowing hard against the acid brewing in her stomach. Can’t lose it now.
“It’s over, Victor,” Jetta said, motioning for the rest of the party to stay back as she approached the staging platform in the middle of the room. An ornate command chair surveyed half-rings of terminals and walls of holographic projectors. Several displays showed the different angles of the war raging above them as the Galactic Republic crushed down on the Starways Alliance Fleet.
Jetta couldn’t see him, but she knew by the weight of the air that he was there. “Stand down.”
“You think you’ve won, Warchild?”A well-manicured hand lifted from the armrest. Gold rings shone in the light. “Why, we’ve only just begun.”
The holographic displays switched over to unified projections of an ancient-looking starcraft. Jetta identified it immediately. The experimental ship our parents and Kurt Stein boarded centuries ago—
“I’ve found my old ship. It’s refueling in my hangar right now, getting ready for her second flight,” he said. “I think that is cause for celebration.”
Victor clapped his hands. From the ventilation shafts and hidden crevices along the walls skittered pointed metal feet.
Jetta wasn’t prepared for the group’s collective reaction to the Liikers. She grabbed onto the nearest terminal, breathing heavily as she tried to gain control of herself against their compounding fear.
“I know you’re too young to drink, but seeing as this is the end, maybe you’ll humor me with a toast.”
Ripping off her helmet, Jetta tried to take in more air than her lungs would allow. She stumbled backward in an attempt to avoid the faceless humanoid heads offering her champagne with their spiny appendages.
Jetta bit her lip, drawing blood, allowing anger and pain to subdue her fears. She attempted to squeeze off a few rounds against the lithe six-leggers, but her gun didn’t seem to work. Neither did Jaeia’s.
“Don’t bother,” Victor said. “Your firearms are useless in here. A nice little feature I had installe
d a few months ago.”
Jetta re-slung her gun and motioned for Jaeia to do the same.
Firearm lockouts, she deduced. She had seen them used before, but as a safety measure in nuclear reactors and subatomic processors.
Victor twirled around in his seat. Outfitted in a tailored white suit topped with an expensive-looking red silk cravat and black cane resting lazily at his side, he could have easily been mistaken for a playboy aristocrat from a different century. If it weren’t for his menacing presence.
He held his glass by the stem and smiled. The light reflecting off his beveled lenses hid his eyes, and the bright diamond finish of his teeth made his mouth sparkle. Though she had never met him in person, she hadn’t expected to feel so diminutive next to his slight, bony frame.
“And who did you bring along with you, Warchild? These are not your typical flock of useless marines.”
Pulling herself together, Jetta regained some of her composure. She took solace in the fact that everyone except her brother had been outfitted in stealth gear, including helmets to shield their faces. She had tried, but every time she or anyone else had attempted to change Jahx out of his infirmary gown or put him in gear, they had been strangely unable to complete the task. Luckily, Jahx lingered at the back of the group, out of Victor’s direct line of sight.
“Victor, I will ask you one last time,” Jetta said, withdrawing her combat knife. She had to play it carefully, especially since they were outnumbered. Even if she could reach Victor, she couldn’t outright kill him without unleashing the Motti’s Dissembler weapon; she would have to uncover his secrets first. “Stand down. It’s over.”
Victor laughed, making his cheeks crinkle. She was close enough now that his skin appeared shiny, like some sort of polymer plastic stretched tightly over a mannequin’s head. Not real—not human.
A borrowed memory surfaced, and she compared Victor’s unusually smooth features to the unfortunate patients who had undergone extensive plastic surgery in the early twenty-first century before the brutal craft had been perfected. On a remote level, she wondered what Oshiro and his surgical teams on Iyo Kono would have thought of Victor’s imperfect transformation.
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