by A A Warren
“I… I am sorry for your loss. When you attacked us, you must have thought…”
We thought you had come for our last clutch of eggs. The last of our untainted young rest here, deep below the ruins.
"Why didn’t you attack the Toho complex and retrieve your eggs?"
Some of our sisters tried. But Katara has surrounded the colony with a shield. The energy field is powered by black jade, and we cannot penetrate it. Even our great strength is not enough to breach her defenses now. And if we could, to what end? As you said, Neros is on the verge of collapse. Soon, all will be destroyed. The young, the old… We shall not live to pass on our memories to the others of our kind.
Talon clenched his jaw and thought for a moment. The ethereal woman watched him in silence.
Finally, he spoke. “You say Salena’s bond links me to others, from my past. You spoke of my trainer, Orex Griff?”
Much of your past remains hidden. But in the memories we share, we see this man. Orex trained you. Cared for you. He was like a father to you.
Talon’s eye glowed bright, pulsing with a warm crimson glow. “That he was. So listen to his words now. A battle is not over until it has been fought. My friend, B’Turo… he is a Toho engineer. He may know a way to get through the shield. You say there are more of you left?
Yes. I can summon my sisters. If there is a way to save our larva, we will do anything we can to help.
“Katara promised us a ship, in exchange for the black jade. I'll need to bring back some crystals, or she won't let us get anywhere near the colony. Can you spare any without endangering your young?
We razed this colony to the ground, but it was all for naught. The eggs we recovered from the humans were altered. They were abominations, created by Katara… they had to be destroyed. We have gathered the last of our healthy larva here, in this cavern. They wait for their time to awaken. But there are so few…
Talon’s mind reeled. He stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, overcome with a crushing sense of loss and pain. He pressed his fingers into his temple, as his crimson eye throbbed. He closed his eyes tight. He felt cool fingers move across his skin, and brush his forehead. Slowly, the dizziness passed. He opened his eyes.
The pale woman kneeled over him, her face half hidden beneath her silvery hair. She smiled, and took his hand in her own. Then she stood, and pulled him to his feet as if he weighed nothing.
You may take the black jade. Do with it as you wish. But we must warn you, Katara is not what she seems. She can control our larva, just as we do. The blood of our sisters flows in her veins. She has altered her own flesh, as well as that of our young. She is no longer what you would call human.
Talon grimaced, as he remembered his last moments with the queen. “There are many things I could call Queen Katara,” he muttered. “‘Human’ would not be my first choice.” He looked up at the woman. “We have an alliance then?”
She nodded, and brushed her hair back from her face, peering at him with a dark, inquisitive gaze.
Through your bond, we have seen your heart. We see bloodshed, violence… Pain. But we also see honor, and compassion. There is good in you, Talon. So we will fight by your side.
“There’s one thing we still need. A vehicle... something that can get us back to the colony.”
The woman lifted her arms. Her robe fell from her naked flesh, and her body glowed with an inner light. Talon squinted, shielding his eyes as she dissolved into a trail of blinding particles. The glowing specks rushed towards the crystal spires and reassembled into the great worm. The creature’s armored scales rasped across the ice as its dropped from its crystal perch, and slithered deeper into the cavern.
We know of something that can help. Come… follow…
Talon narrowed his eyes as the massive creature disappeared into the darkness. He took a step toward the shadows at the end of the cave. As his foot touched down, he felt himself tumbling, falling… the ground vanished beneath his feet. There was only darkness. A ring of blue light surrounded him. The bond had been severed, and the memory of the cavern dissolved into wisps of shadow. He closed his eyes, and plunged into the light.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Talon’s eyes shot open, and he gasped for breath. He glanced left and right, peering into the shadow… he realized he was lying on his back, on the ice. Scrambling to his feet, he looked down and saw B’Turo laying next to him. The old man’s skin still had a deathly pallor, and his breathing sounded ragged. He was unconscious, but he was still alive.
Talon reached out and touched the wall of the ice tunnel that ran alongside them. Their surroundings had changed. Instead of the cavernous ruins, they were now in a smooth, narrow passageway.
The ice beneath his feet was clear of debris. Shimmering walls curved up around him, and only a few faint rays of light pierced the frigid shadows.
Talon kneeled and slapped B’Turo’s cheeks. “Come on, old man. Wake up.”
The withered miner coughed and sputtered. Talon eased him up into a sitting position.
B’Turo squinted and rubbed his head. “You know kid, ever since I met you my risk of head injury has gone through the roof.”
Talon chuckled. “I swear, this time I barely touched you. One of those things crawled out of your throat. The larva.”
B’Turo shuddered. “I know. I remember now. Once that thing left my body, it all came back to me. When Katara discovered larva gestating in the black jade, she tripled our work shifts. Sent every ore-slicer she had into the core to find more of them. Then she shipped in corpses, hundreds of them. She cloned the larva and put the dead to work as well.”
Talon slung the old man's arm across his shoulder and hefted him to his feet.
“But why? What does she want with them?”
B’Turo coughed, as the two of them limped along the tunnel. “She had her bio-mancers alter them somehow. We knew the larva could control the nervous system of dead organisms as a defense mechanism. But Katara made them smaller, more aggressive. Somehow, she changed their brain structure, made it so they could control living tissue.”
“You said she gave you treatments, using her bio-harvesters,” Talon grunted. “Perhaps that’s how she implanted the mutated larva inside you. She used you as a test subject.”
B’Turo nodded. “Maybe… That part's still fuzzy. Hey, where are we going, anyway?”
The ice tunnel grew wider, brighter. More light streamed in from the opening ahead.
“I told the dorokuma we needed a vehicle. Something to bring the black jade back to the Toho colony, so Katara will give us a ship.”
B’Turo coughed again and gave him a sideways glance. “Oh yeah? Told who?”
Talon grinned. “Trust me… it’s a long story.”
They came to the end of the tunnel. Talon sucked in his breath.
“Iberon’s harem…”
They stood perched on a frozen ledge, hundreds of meters above another massive cavern. A mangled skeleton of metal beams and hanging chains jutted from the rocks and ice. On the floor of the cavern below, smashed machinery and piles of collapsed rubble littered the floor. The devastated landscape looked like a junkyard planet... mountains of refuse stretched into the shadows, as far as the eye could see.
B’Turo whistled. “This must have been the Zigra’s hangar deck. All the tremors and quakes tore this place to shreds.”
Talon nodded. “Or the dorokuma.”
“Looks like we've got more climbing to do.”
Talon squinted at the old man. “Why? All that's down there are more ruins and scrap.”
B’Turo coughed again. His nose was red from the cold, and some color flooded back into his cheeks. “Well,” he wheezed, “you said we needed a vehicle to get to the Toho colony.” He raised a frail arm and pointed towards a towering pile of debris. “That should do the trick.”
Talon followed the old man's gaze. He spotted a ring of armor plating, peeking out from beneath a mountain of debris. The hub of a ma
ssive beam protector jutted out from the torn metal and scrap.
"A Zigra ore-slicer!" Talon exclaimed. "That’s why they brought us here.”
B’Turo looked up at him. “I’d ask who again, but I have a feeling I won’t like the answer.”
Talon slapped the man on his back. “Never mind that! Do you think you can get it up and running?”
B’Turo exploded into another fit of coughing. “Easy kid! And don’t worry. Hell, the Toho ore-slicers have logged fifty times their recommended hours in the last month, and I’ve kept them running. If that thing still has a power reactor inside, I can start her up.”
They inched their way down the ice ledge, pressing their backs against the cold rock walls. B’Turo’s feet slipped. His eyes opened wide with fear as he skidded several inches down the steep incline.
Talon grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.
B’Turo looked up at him, panting for breath. “Of course, we have to make it down there first.”
They resumed their trek down the ledge, descending into the sunken remains of the colony below.
Makor picked up a crumpled metal panel and slammed it against the ground, dislodging the ice that clung to its surface. He held it up with his good arm. Charred burn marks stretched around the outer edge of the mangled sheet metal. A series of black letters and numbers adorned the plate’s surface. He consulted his wrist display. The serial number matched the beam skater Talon and B’Turo had taken from the Toho colony.
Burn marks, he thought. They had to blow the hatch. But they were here, in this canyon.
He paced over to the jagged edge of the ice wall and gazed down at the vast white plain below. A pair of scanner goggles hung from a leather strap at his shoulder. He lifted them to his eyes and scoured the endless ice.
Through the glowing green display, he saw nothing but cracked, frozen ground, and a haze of snow that obscured the horizon. Numbers ticked up on the left side of the display as he increased the magnification.
He tilted down, looking straight over the edge of the cliff.
The mangled remains of a beam-skater lay in a crumpled heap, smashed to pieces by the long fall.
Makor lowered the goggles. With his naked eyes, he examined the ground beneath his feet. The fierce wind cut at his skin like a frozen blade, as it blew a layer of white powder away from the ground. The shifting snow revealed a strip of black synthetic rope, half frozen in the ice.
He kneeled down and pulled the material from the snow. Holding it up, he inspected the torn cargo strap.
Smooth cuts. Perfect and precise, made by a cryocite blade. Talon survived the crash.
He stood up and looked through the goggles again. His bulging yellow eyes squinted as he increased the brightness of the display. He turned to where he knew the ruins of the Zigra colony lay. He zoomed in again, until the mangled metal beams and collapsed domes came into focus.
A black shape streaked out of the wreckage, traveling across the ice at great speed. The long, cylindrical vehicle threw up a plum of ice and snow in its wake as it tore across he frozen ground.
Makor activated the scanner's energy detection sensor. A red light flashed at the top of the display. Makor’s comm unit crackled to life. Katara’s voice echoed through the chilled air.
“Makor, report. Do you have the cargo?”
He lowered the goggles. "Not yet, my Queen. But I have found Talon and B'Turo. They are heading back to Toho territory in a scavenged ore-slicer. And I detect the energy signature of black jade onboard."
“You must intercept them. We are running out of time! I have received a hyper-transmission from the Crown Prince’s fleet. He will be here soon.”
Makor glanced up, watching as the glowing red orb of the sun sank another few inches below the shimmering horizon.
“Yes, my Queen. They will not live to see the sun set again. I will return with your prize shortly.”
“I warn you, Makor… You know the price of failure.”
Suddenly, Makor dropped the goggles and fell to his knees. He clutched his head with his good hand. His fingers clawed at his scalp and temples. Every sound, every thought, every neuron firing in his body was an echo of the pure, intense agony that flooded his mind.
He screamed in pain, as he felt the thing inside him coil and tighten its grip. His head jerked up, and his eyes bulged wide. His breath was a high-pitched wheeze through his hydro-mask.
Then, in an instant, it ended. His body relaxed and slumped forward. He flopped over the ice, twitching and gasping for breath.
“My… My Queen.” He pushed himself to his knees, then staggered to his feet. “I would sooner die than fail you. My honor will not be tarnished again.”
“See to it, Makor. Bring me my prize. I control your mind, and your flesh. If you fail me, I will not allow you to die. I will shred what little remains of your honor, along with your other arm. Do you understand?”
He turned, following the distant ore-slicer as it tore across the ice. His plasma arm blazed to life. Its fiery orange glow reflected off the shimmering ice around him. He clenched the burning fingers into a fist, and raised the arm up to his face, staring at the swirling tendrils of energy within.
“I have been waiting to face this man for a long time, my Queen. By the Haunted Stars, I swear nothing will stand in my way. He will die, and I will deliver what is yours.”
The crackle of static disappeared, along with her voice.
Makor looked out across the ice, his breath gurgling slow and steady through his mask. Then he trudged out of the canyon and headed back to his ship.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A dull throbbing stirred Vaki to consciousness. She groaned and reached behind her head, probing her scalp through her short, dark hair. Her fingers touched a mass of blood, and a thick, painful lump.
She blinked. Darkness surrounded her, but she was no longer unconscious. She reached forward and felt a smooth, unyielding surface. The wall was cool to the touch. It curved around her, less than a meter from her body. Whatever the barrier was made of, it was invisible in the pitch-black shadows that cloaked her surroundings. The size and feel of the darkened chamber reminded her of the life tube she had hidden in, on board the Consortium freighter.
She thought back to her mission… Her decision to stow away on the freighter; her plan to expose the suffering of Consortium citizens, and the greed of the Clans. To gain the attention of the one person who could do something about it…
The Jotoru Emperor.
But then Talon had stormed into the cargo bay. And all her plans had gone up in smoke. Thanks to him, they were stranded on this frozen wasteland, in the clutches of an insane woman whose desires she couldn’t begin to understand.
Then again, she thought, Talon saved your life…
Vaki bit her lip, then pounded on the glass. What did it matter? Soon this planet would collapse into burning rubble. And her along with it, assuming Katara didn’t kill her first. She had no way of knowing if her emergency transmission had bypassed the jamming field. No way of knowing if anyone would come to help.
Whatever happened next, she was alone.
Suddenly, her dark prison jerked into motion. A faint light shone down from above. She blinked, and shielded her eyes with her hand. As she rose up from the darkness, the dim light was almost blinding, but she could see her own faint reflection, staring back at her. The wall before her was transparent. The tube came to a stop, and hydraulic clamps locked around the exterior with a loud thunk.
Vaki pressed her hands against the clear, curved surface, and glanced around the room. From the corner of her eye, she could see two other tubes standing on either side of her. They were all poised on a raised platform, one of several in the sprawling chamber. Directly ahead of her, a circular window looked out over the bleak frozen landscape of Neros. Glowing tapestries covered the surrounding walls. The colorful energy membranes displayed scenes from Aoshun folklore. Massive portraits of great Clan lords f
rom the past hung from the domed ceiling above. Vaki recognized them from the history vids her father had forced her to study as a child.
A suit of Kujita armor stood in the far corner of the room, supported by a glowing blue lifter field in the shape of a man. A row of ancient swords hovered in the air next to it. Shimmering crystals and precious metal engravings decorated their sleek, glossy scabbards.
Vaki pounded on the transparent window of the tube, but it was no use… the material was several centimeters thick, and impossible for her to break with her bare hands.
A figure emerged from the shadows. Katara slinked towards the tubes, trailing a long, crimson robe across the floor. The puddle of fabric flowed behind her like a trail of freshly spilled blood. The robe parted as Katara drew near, revealing a slash of pale ivory flesh.
Servo motors hummed to life, and the three tubes tilted backwards. Vaki could hear Katara’s heels, clicking audibly across the floor. The woman leaned over the curved cylinder. She peered down at Vaki and smiled. Her delicate fingers reached out and brushed across the transparent barrier. Her nails made soft, clicking sounds as she tapped them against the tube.
A bitter laugh escaped the woman’s lips. Speakers in the tube amplified her voice. “You caused quite a disturbance in the lower levels. If this planet weren’t crumbling to pieces around me, I would have you whipped for destruction of Clan property.” The strange acoustics of the tube amplified the voice, making it sound like the imperious woman was whispering into her ear.
“You’re the one breaking Consortium laws,” Vaki snapped. “Illegal medical experiments, unauthorized jamming of hyper-transmissions… What exactly are you hiding on this planet?”
Katara leaned closer. Vaki blinked, as the woman’s features filled her vision. The woman was beautiful, but there was something… more. Up close, she could see why Talon had been so enthralled. There was an aura about her, a vibration in the air. Vaki blinked. She felt almost light headed and dizzy in the woman's presence.
