“Okay, you said we were going to make the reactor overload. How do we do that?” I asked Khala glancing over my shoulder to see whether her phantasmal form was still seated at co-pilot’s station. Khala had disappeared, so instead she responded to me her voice echoing through my head. ‘There to your right behind that panel.’
I glanced over and yanked the panel loose with a burst of K’teth enhanced strength before tossing the panel over my shoulder. “Okay, what now?”
Khala had me rummaging around in there and tinkering with tubes and wires, before she finally declared that I was done. I really didn’t have any clue what any of the things I had done were actually supposed to accomplish, but Khala at least was satisfied with the results. ‘Now,’ she added. ‘Get back to the controls it won’t be long before the reactor blows.’
I leapt back into the pilot’s seat and sent the ship lurching forward by tapping my fingers on the thruster controls. The Qharr destroyer’s fire pelted down from above and I veered sideways narrowly evading a barrage of bolts. I swooped around guiding the smaller vessel around the destroyer to the back where the anti-grav engines were. I got as close to the shields as I could and let out a dozen or so of my more choice curses when I was forced to send the ship careening away to dodge more blasts from the destroyer’s cannons.
A bright speck flashed across the control panel accompanied by a loud klaxon-like horn, warning me of an imminent reactor breach which was my cue to leave. I locked the course into autonav then I reached down at the side of the seat and yanked as hard as I could on the eject lever. There came a click then a loud mechanical groan and I grimaced pounding my fist against the side of the bulkhead to my right.
“Shit, I think it’s jammed. You got any ideas?”
‘You’ll have to jump out of the exit hatch,’ came the answer.
“Damn, well this ought to be fun,” I muttered before grabbing at the hatch and forcing it open. The ship lurched and I was nearly thrown out as the autonav system’s struggled to maintain its programmed course. I gritted my teeth and glanced back over my shoulder then shuddered ever so slightly before I took one last deep breathe, jumped out of the craft and went falling feet first to the ground below.
Downfall
Upon rescuing my sister, aided in our escape by a mysterious stranger, the final pieces of the puzzle fall together and we learn the intended purpose of the biometric key, but will it be enough to rescue Earth from the clutches of the Qharr?
Chapter One
Wind whipped all around me as I plummeted to the Earth and I gritted my teeth against the forces of the gusts. The explosion came less than thirty seconds later and I howled in pain as fiery hot bursts erupted slamming into my back. There came an amazing flood of energy as Khala consumed the power and the pain in my back suddenly faded away when she used the same energy to heal my injury. Unfortunately, Khala could do nothing for the tattered remnants of my clothes which had been burned up and all the remaining pieces, save for my panties, which were hanging onto me by a thread, flew away from my body caught up by the wind. The phase pistol I’d taken from the Corrector, having a lot more weight to it, was not blown away and I was able to snatch it out of the air before it flew out of my reach.
The wind against my bare skin, particularly on my breasts, felt strange, but I told myself that it didn’t matter and pulled the trigger on the phase pistol. I fired off nearly a dozen shots before I caught sight of the outline of the rescue ship. The flashes from my weapon appeared to have drawn their attention just as I had hoped it would. I continued to pull the trigger, until finally the rescue craft swooped down under me. The ship flew up toward me and there came a loud hiss as it approached. A hatch popped open folding away and grew wider until finally it was about as big around as I was tall.
The ship flew up toward me and suddenly my feet made contact with the upper-side of the hull. Khala cushioned me against nearly the entire force of the impact, but when I tried to take a step, the ship lurched forward and I went tumbling down face first into the hull. The rescue ship went careening sideways and I could feel myself slide away. Whatever her reasons, I doubted Lily would send the ship lurching sideways unless she absolutely had too. Like if say, the ship was being fired on. I felt around frantically trying to find something to grip hold of, and found purchase by clenching my hand around a piece of exposed piping. It soon righted itself and not willing to risk falling over again, I crept slowly across the surface of the hull before finally finding my way to the open entry hatch. I crept over the edge then fell inside head first. “We got her!” Kaya’s familiar voice called then I heard a snap-hiss from above as the door closed itself.
“Dear lord!” Kaya breathe kneeling down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re freaking insane you know that?”
I nodded and bit my lip before slowly climbing up onto my knees pressing them into my naked breasts as I craned my neck to look up at her. “You have no idea. You think you could get me some clothes?”
“How’d that happen?”
I shrugged. “I was a little too close when the patrol ship exploded and my clothes were burnt up. Lucky for me, I had Khala to absorb all that energy, anyone else would have been toasted to a crisp.”
“Hold on, I’ll be back, but in the meantime there’s someone waiting on the other side of the airlock who’d like to see you,” she muttered before releasing the door. There was a snap-hiss as the air-lock was re-pressurized then she shuffled out the door and was immediately replaced by my sister. Becca fell to her knees beside me and threw her arms around me her eyes and cheeks red from crying. “I thought I’d lost you, again.”
I put my hands on her shoulders, and gently pushed her away feeling my cheeks burn as I did so. A few days worth of showers in the women’s shower room at Het’ma had done little to lessen my discomfort with my female body and being naked, particularly around my sister just made me feel all the more uncomfortable. I pursed my lips and looked my sister in the eyes, “I’ll tell you what I told Jaysun, I don’t plan on dying any time soon. I’m pretty damned hard to kill so don’t worry. A lot of stuff that’ll kill a regular person won’t even faze me.”
She smiled, wiped away her tears then slowly nodded then looked at me with her eyebrows furrowed, “Who’s Jaysun?”
“She’s the one that’s been piloting the ship, she’s bonded with a K’teth symbiote like me,” I muttered shaking my head.
“You mean that Lily girl? The one with blue hair and those weird pink eyes?” she asked staring at me blankly.
I wondered briefly who Lily was, but soon realized she must mean Jaysen. Apparently, in my absence she’d chosen a female moniker and I had to admit that I could definitely imagine Jaysun going by the name Lily. “Yeah, I think that’s her,” I grinned up at my sister. “I should have guessed she’d do away with her male name as quick as she could.”
“You mean she’s a guy?” my sister blinked.
“Used to be… well physically at least. Like me, she got changed by her symbiote, but she actually wanted it. I just got stuck being female because– well maybe that’s something we probably ought to talk about later,” I replied shaking my head and shuddering just a bit at the thought of how I’d been largely responsible for Jaysen… Lily’s transformation.
“Alright,” Kaya said absent appearing in the doorway. “Apparently Jaysun…” she winced then corrected herself. “Lily, didn’t do any laundry while we were gone and none of your clothes were clean… so I went through the stash we brought back from the supply cache and I think I was able to find some things that will fit you reasonably well.”
I nodded and was about to reach for the clothes, but Becca beat me to it. “Thanks, Kaya,” my sister smiled. “It’s getting a little crowded in here I’ll help Jeff get dressed and we’ll meet you back in the control room.”
Kaya hesitated, bit her lip shrugged and then disappeared from the doorway. My sister watched her leave then closed the door behind her and turned b
ack to me with a thoughtfully expression. “This would go a lot easier if you stood up.”
“I am full capable of dressing myself, you know,” I glanced up at her and imagined that my cheeks must have turned an even deeper shade of red. Becca, I’m sure, knew this, but my sister had always done everything she could to look after her younger ‘brother’. She hadn’t seen me in over ten years, but it seemed she was more than ready to resume her old role.
She put her hands on her hip and gave me that look that all women seemed to have perfected (though I had yet to do so). I actually found myself wondering how they did it and if it was something that was built in or if it had to be learned. The way some men wilted under such a gaze, made me think it might not be a bad idea to try an imitate it. At the very least, it could prove useful. I raised an eyebrow and tried my best to imitate my sister’s stare, but this only produced a giggle from Becca. Clearly, I had some more work to do before I was able to perfect my own ‘glare’.
I looked into my sisters eyes for a brief moment I caught a glimmer of my sister, the confident self-assured Becca, like she had been before I’d been taken away by Duvak. The old Becca faded away, and the tired worn down Becca returned. “I’m sorry,” she said holding the clothes out to me. “Here.”
I thanked her then gritting my teeth, and stood up dressing myself under her watchful eyes. “God,” she muttered finally. “I can hardly belief you’re really Jellfree in there. You’re absolutely gorgeous!”
I shook my head. “Don’t remind me… Becca. Can you call me Lexa? It just doesn’t feel right going by my old name anymore.”
“Oh,” she muttered reached up to cover her mouth. “I guess I just figured you went by Lexa in the compound to hide your identity. It’s short for Alexana, Mom’s middle name, isn’t it?”
I nodded after having pulled the shirt down over my head and thus finished dressing myself, “Yeah, I sort of figured I could honor her that way.”
She bit her lip, and seemed a bit at a loss for words then she slowly nodded, “We have a lot to catch up on don’t we? But that can wait… I think you’re friends are probably pretty eager to see you.”
I nodded and put my hand on her shoulder then guided her to the door. “Come on then we’ll go to them together and I can give you a proper introduction.”
Chapter Two
“So…” I trailed off with my arm around Becca’s shoulder as we stepped into the bridge together.
“Speak of the devil, and she appears before you,” Rayland grinned at me as he shared a sidelong glance with Farris.
“God! Don’t do anything like that again!” Jaysun, or rather Lily, glared at me glancing at me from her seat at the console. Most of her body was obscured by the Qharr-sized chair she was sitting in so I had no idea whether she’d completed her transformation or not.
“Trust me,” I replied folding my arms across my chest and smirked back at her. “I won’t if I can help it.”
Farris scratched his head and stared at me with a confused expression. “I’m still not sure what happened.”
“It was a stroke of brilliance is what it was!” Lily answered throwing her hands up into the air. “She used the anti-matter explosion from the patrol ship’s reactor to destabilize the destroyer’s engines and kept it from being able to pursue us.”
“What she said,” I agreed pointing at Lily then I bit my lip and frowned. “Actually it was Khala’s idea.”
Lily grinned. “Too bad no one figured out how to do that during the invasion. A few well-placed anti-matter bombs could have really leveled the playing field.”
“Actually, that particular design flaw is unique to J’narr class destroyers and then only with the earlier models. Just a few of which remained in service, even during the days of the invasion of Earth,” Khala appeared standing beside Farris.
Lily nodded and bit her lip, then jumped a bit when a new voice spoke, “Mother, I am glad to see you are well.” The voice belonged to a statuesque woman who bore a striking resemblance to Khala, even sharing the blue hair and magenta eyes, but she was shorter and had a more toned psyche. Since, no one save Lily and myself seemed to be able to see her it wasn’t very hard for me to guess that she was Lily’s K’teth.
“So, what now?” My sister asked glancing about the room with wide eyes.
“Well,” Kaya shrugged then winced and gripped at the phase wound on her shoulder. “I’m gonna go see the doctor, but after that we should have him look Rayland and your sister over… You know just in case.
I shuddered and gently squeezed my sister’s shoulders reassuringly. It sent cold chills down my spine just thinking that the Qharr might have done the same thing to my sister that they’d done to Strave, but I knew Kaya was just being cautious. Still, even if Becca’s mind hadn’t been bent, and I really wanted to believe it hadn’t, there was no saying Rayland hadn’t been brain-washed. I’d been suspicious of him from the beginning and really didn’t trust his motives even if it turned out he was acting of his own free will.
Lily tapped her fingers against the control panel then leapt out from her seat. “I set a general course in a northward direction. The Qharr pretty much wiped out the population of Old Canada, there isn’t much anyone living up there other than wild men and vagrants. The lack of Qharr colonies makes it a pretty good place to hide. Plus, there’s a lot of forested regions up there so I think we should be able to find a good place to hide.”
I studied Lily as she stared across the room at me, she’d lost a great deal of height, I could tell that much right off the bat. It was difficult to tell from the other side of the bridge, but I guessed I must be close to thirty centimeters taller than her. She didn’t have much in the way of a figure, in fact, it was more boyish than anything, but I got the impression her changes weren’t quite finished. There were a pair of small breasts, which were comparable in size to those you might see on a girl in the early stages of puberty sticking out proudly from her chest from under her shirt, and there was a slight curve to her hips that was just barely noticeable.
“Good thinking,” Kaya replied jarring me out of my examination of Lily. “The resistance used to keep a few bases up in that region. From what I heard there was almost no worry of discovery because the Qharr patrol ships almost never passed by.”
I blinked. “Why didn’t you put more bases up there then?”
“Well, we needed to keep most of our bases within close vicinity of the slave compounds and cities since we didn’t exactly have much in the way of transportation.”
“Ah,” I nodded in understanding. “So… where’s the doctor? I sort of figured he’d be up here.”
“He’s got some project going on in what passes for an infirmary here. I tried to ask him what it was all about, but he mumbled something about unlocking the secrets of the gods and wouldn’t say anything more. Whatever he’s up to it’s been keeping him occupied. The only time he leaves that little lab is to ‘intake some sustenance’ as he put it and to check in on me, but other than that I barely ever see him. He’s even been sleeping in there… well if that thing he does can be considered sleeping,” Lily replied with a shrug and a very slight shudder.
I nodded then gripped one of my hands on Kaya’s uninjured shoulder. “Let’s get you to the doctor. I don’t like the look of that phase wound.”
Kaya nodded and gritted her teeth. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
“I’ll go with her,” Farris volunteered then turned to glance at both Becca and Rayland. “Maybe you two should come too,” he added licking his lips and running a hand through his hair.
“A bona fide human doctor?” Rayland smirked folding his arms across his chest.
“Well, he’s not exactly human,” Lily pursed her lips, “but he is a doctor.”
“Well now, this really ought to be interesting,” Rayland mused then motioning his hand at Farris. “Lead the way.”
“I probably ought to stay here,” Lily said throwing a thumb over her shoul
der and shared a shy smile with me. “You know in case any more Qharr ships show up.”
“Good idea, we’ll talk more later.” I said, smiling back and then turned away and started toward the door.
“Lexa wait!” Lily called after me. I swirled around and watched as she darted across the control room toward me. “I’m glad you made it back.”
I smiled at her and was about to reply when she stood up on the tips of her toes then grabbed my shirt collar, drew my head in and locked her lips around mine in a kiss. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about doing that since you left.”
I blushed then grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “I-I thought about you too. In fact, I had some pretty interesting dreams about you.”
“Oh yeah?” she trembled biting her lips as she stared fixedly at my breasts. “I, uh, hope they were pleasant.”
“Very,” I replied, forcing down a sudden urge to act out those dreams.
“Well, you’ll have to tell me all about them,” she flashed me a coy smile then took a few steps back. “O-once things have settled down a bit.”
“Oh,” she added thoughtfully glancing at the door. “I didn’t want to say anything around him just yet since I’m not really sure about it, but I think I might know who that Rayland guy is.”
I choked and stared at her with wide eyes. “You do?”
She nodded, “He’s a nester.”
“A what?”
“A nester… they’re humans who holed themselves up in hidden shelters during the invasion and managed to keep themselves from getting captured by the gray-skins. They’re pretty secretive and they almost never leave their nests, but when they do there’s usually a pretty good reason.”
Well, that would seemed to explain why he’d had such a hard time integrating into life at the compound. We’d only been there a few days, but I’d heard talk of him angering one of the guards. I hadn’t really given it much thought until that moment, but it would seem to support Lily’s suspicions.
Battle For Earth Page 28
