by Aer-ki Jyr
“She’s alive,” he told the Kiritas. “It’s over.”
“Unconscious?”
He nodded. “We need to feed her jewel. Power and material.”
“How is she?” Zeddi asked, walking alongside them as they didn’t waste a second on idle conversation.
“Bad, but she’ll live.”
“It tortured her,” another Archon added. “No numbing as it worked. It is now, but after what she went through…she’s not gonna shake that off anytime soon.”
“But is she out of danger?”
“It saved her life.”
“Yeah, and probably did this to her in the first place,” another argued. “I don’t see how else a regenerator wouldn’t work.”
“I’ll let the trailblazers know,” Zeddi said, letting them take her down the hallway as he stopped and turned around, heading for the bridge. Kara had never told him where she got the jewel from, but he’d learned a decent amount about it, as had most of Clan Ghostblade. If she’d cut her own arm off to get rid of it something bad must have happened…and if it had sabotaged her so she couldn’t take it off, then this was definitely something beyond his security level.
He didn’t know how long it would be until Kara woke up, or what condition she would be in when she did, but he needed to get the 1s up here, for whatever was going on here was clearly their turf.
2
Erin-016 was the first one to get to orbit, boarding the Yi via dropship and storming through the command ship until she got to the medbay where Kara was…but though she could feel her presence on the other side of the room, it was a wall of medtechs and Archons that came into view when she rounded the doorway coming out of the hall.
“Move,” she said lightly, with the others making a path for her to get through as soon as they recognized the trailblazer. Erin pushed through the gap roughly, nudging those out of the way that didn’t move fast enough and finally got her eyes on Kara.
She was alone on a med table, sitting in a cross-legged position and staring at the wall in a zombie-like trance that Erin could feel as well. Her emotions weren’t hidden to Erin’s telepathy, and Kara was emitting them like a low level beacon sending out stun signals.
“Hey,” Erin said, sitting down on the cushioned table in front of her, but Kara’s eyes didn’t track her way. “Hey,” she repeated, grabbing her chin and making Kara look at her. “You still in there?”
Kara’s eyes finally focused, almost painfully, on Erin’s face, but the physical contact between the two allowed Erin to see what was really going on inside her mind. She almost let go in reaction to the pain, or rather memory of pain, but she held firm as the full damage to her psyche was tallied.
“Come on, sister,” Erin said, sliding off the table and lifting Kara up telekinetically, then dumped her into her arms as she spun around and began to leave the med bay. “They can’t help you anymore here.”
Kara didn’t resist or say anything, letting herself being carried like a rag doll through the ship to the Archon sanctum. By that time Sara-012 was already onboard and Erin telepathically called to her to follow them to one of the larger training courses that wasn’t in use. Erin entered, still carrying the nearly comatose Kara, and climbed up the arcade-style mountain made of colorful blocks until they were at the flat peak where many a pitched battles had been fought against drone units trying to knock the Archons off…but none were active, and the mountain was silent save for the light footfalls of Sara below as she bounced her way to the top behind them.
Erin set Kara down then assumed a seated position behind her as she wrapped the beleaguered Archon in a firm hug and didn’t let go. Kara felt like a wet noodle, offering no resistance and barely holding herself upright.
When Sara caught up she bounded over the rim and walked slowly to the pair, kneeling down so she could look Kara in her eyes that seemed to see nothing at all as she stared off into oblivion.
“Kara, what happened?” Sara asked while the other 1s that were currently on planet were on their way up to the ship.
She reached her hand out and Sara took it, then a flood of visuals and internal memories hit Sara like a sledgehammer.
“Shit,” she whispered, exchanging a few telepathic comments with Erin as they tried to figure out what to do. Kara’s brain functions were normal, so far as all the components were there, having been regrown thanks to the Vorch’nas, but her mental state was sheer chaos that was in a holding pattern as Kara tried to process what had just happened to her…but without an active enemy to lock on to. One couldn’t fight an enemy in the past, and the trauma she’d suffered was going to take time to wear off as she mentally punched phantoms with no effect.
It took more than an hour with the trailblazers in Kara’s head helping her work her way to some semblance of stability, then out of nowhere her first spoken words surprised all 6 of them.
“You have to give Ghostblade to someone else,” she said in a whisper so weak they couldn’t have heard it if not for the silence in the chamber. “I can’t lead it anymore. I have to hide.”
“Hide?” Sara asked?
Kara held up her right arm, which now held her Vorch’nas while her reattached left was bare. “It reset. The programming was destroyed. The remnants are quarantined in corrupted files. My knowledge of the V’kit’no’sat is gone. My knowledge of the Dragons is gone. And their programming is gone. My mind is free. I can’t let them reprogram me. I have to hide.”
“What proximity?” Jace-013 asked.
“I don’t know. If they’re in the system I could be compromised.”
“What programming is gone?” Sara asked.
“There was some in the first one,” Kara answered, her voice getting a little stronger. “I can see the difference now. I think it just made me more familiar with the way the Dragons work…and I’m calling them Dragons now. Not Zak’de’ron. That was probably coded too. But the big change came with the upgrade. They did something to me. Something major. And I think it was to control the Rit’ko’sor information. They knew I’d be the one involved, because I was the only one that had the information, and they wanted to guide the development of the Raptors through me. So they made me think the way they wanted.”
Kara finally looked up, staring at Ethan-014. “I can’t go back, Ethan. And I can’t take this damn thing off. They sabotaged me. They told me never to take it off, and they put some kind of kill switch in it. I cut my arm off to remove it, and it grew legs and tried to jump on me to reattach. I didn’t let it. I tried to kill it. I thought I had. Good thing I didn’t. It’s the only thing that saved me, and now it’s unlocked. I have access to all of it. Stuff the Dragons didn’t want me to have access to. They’ll seal it back up. Jamb their programming in my head again. I have to disappear. Fake my death if needed.”
“What exactly did they do to you?” Sara asked.
“This thing acts like part of my brain. Right now it’s just tech linked in, but add programming and it takes control. I was stupid to think they were honorable. Their wisdom and loyalty is just a sham they use to endear their slaves. Try and break away from their control…and you see their true colors. If you live long enough to figure it out. They’re as bad as the V’kit’no’sat. They’re why the V’kit’no’sat are so bad. They taught them. That’s why they were betrayed. The Dragons are the master betrayers and their apprentices learned too well. We can’t trust them. Tell Paul to destroy the sword. Just get rid of it. It’s not worth the risk. They may be trying to mess with his head too. Just destroy the thing, now!” Kara yelled.
“On it,” Jace said, realizing how adamant Kara was about this and knowing that if something was wrong every second could count and he wanted to give Paul as many as he could. The trailblazer jumped off the mountain and disappeared, heading towards the nearest comm terminal so he could warn his brother who was still beyond Star Force territory fighting the Ziviri.
“Don’t worry about Paul, or your Clan,” Sara told her. “We’ll take car
e of both. Was the torture intentional?”
“No. The Vorch’nas was damaged. It wasn’t numbing right,” she said, a tear breaking free as Erin tried to help her keep her wits. The damage to her body had been healed, but her Core had been tortured by the process and that wasn’t something she was going to shake off anytime soon, Archon or not.
“And now?”
“It’s healing itself, but needs more material to grow. I can grow it as big as I want now. All the way up to a level 12. I have full control of it,” she said, raising her right arm and causing the now smaller jewel to transform into armor that only covered her from shoulder to fingers…and it was white, smooth armor, not the red dragon scales, of either version, that it had been before.
“I can make it any color, any shape. The damage to the Vorch’nas wiped all the programming save for the base that was redundant in all pieces. It had to combine the fragments in order to fully rebuild it, but it’s now without training wheels. If they find it like this they’ll slap them back on. I know they will. They’re like the V’kit’no’sat. I didn’t earn this, so they’ll try to deprive me of it. I’d take it off if I could, but I can’t, so I have to hide. Somewhere they won’t find me. Somewhere they won’t look.”
“Maybe we can build a jamming device,” Ethan suggested. “Then they’d have to make physical contact.”
“I don’t know enough yet,” Kara warned. “Maybe there’s a way, but I need time to dig into this and find out. It’s so complicated, but I have access now. I just need time. Somewhere they can’t find me.”
“Can they track you?” Aaron-010 asked.
“I’m not transmitting now. But if they send a pulse it will reflect it. They can find me anywhere in a system if they know where I am. I have to hide. I have to be lost.”
“So we need to block the signal,” Ethan pressed.
“It’s not a comm system like ours. There’s the standard one, but beneath it is another beyond our technology. I don’t know how to block that one. I can turn some of it off, but if they have base programming to override…get me out of here. Somewhere. I don’t know. But get me out of here, please.”
“If they have a ship here watching, it can follow us anywhere so long as it can track you,” Sara said. “Can you figure out when they ping you?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Figure it out. If you can tell, then we can see whether or not they’re following and we can make you disappear. If not, then there’s no point in moving you anywhere.”
“If she dies, what will they do?” Aaron wondered.
“They can’t know about the sabotage,” Kara warned. “They can’t know I know. Fake my death some other way.”
“No,” Erin said, shaking her head and bouncing the little curlicues of her semi-short hair back and forth. “They might try to retrieve the Vorch’nas, or it might send a signal if she died. Better to let them think she’s still alive if they’re not in the system monitoring now.”
“If they are they might already know,” Sara pointed out.
“She’d be reprogramed by now,” Erin differed. “I’m guessing they’re not here and they’re counting on their programming to guide her to guide us to make the Raptors what they want…or to avoid what they don’t want.”
“Do you know what that is?” Sara asked Kara.
“No. It’s all gone. I just remember what it did to me, though it’s all blurry now. I can breathe now. I couldn’t back then. I can’t let this take hold of me again. I’m stuck with it. I’m vulnerable. I’m compromised. I have to run. It’s the only way.”
“We’ll help you,” Sara promised. “Even if we have to find Cal-com and beat down the Dragons’ door to make them fix it.”
“No,” Kara said, nearly bolting off the mountaintop at the thought, then she settled back down into a seated position with Erin still holding onto her. “No. They can’t know we know. They have to think we’re still dupes. If they know we know…they might make a move against us. We’re valuable as servants, or allies they can control. If we break away from that, there are no guarantees.”
“We hold the knowledge of their existence,” Ethan reminded her. “We have leverage.”
“If we use it, they’ll destroy us. They have sneaky ways to do it. We have to play for time. Time for us to catch up. We can’t make an enemy of them. Not until we’re ready to fight. Let them think I’m still ignorant. If they can’t find me, they’ll assume everything is normal. If they find me, they’ll know it’s not. I have to disappear.”
“First things first,” Sara insisted. “Your mojo is way off. You need to punch something. Can you pull yourself together enough to smash a few drones?”
“No,” Kara said, withdrawing a bit.
“What’s stopping you?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“She got thrown into a blender,” Erin argued.
“And she needs to fight her way out. It won’t be pretty, but it’s the best way for one of us. Start by standing back up.”
“She’s right,” Erin agreed. “Baby steps, Kara. I know you don’t feel like it, but I’ll help if you can manage battlemeld.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Try,” Erin insisted, holding onto her so she could hack into her body and force it as much as needed. Erin extended the battlemeld prompt, but it took several minutes before Kara’s very raw and touchy mind finally accepted it.
Erin nearly puked when she did, but as promised she held on and acted as a point of stability for Kara…while Kara acted as a destabilizing factor for Erin.
“Me and my big mouth,” she said, wobbling as she stood up with Kara following a moment later. “I feel sick.”
“I feel better,” Kara said meekly. “Thank you.”
“Use it,” Sara prompted.
“We can’t do much,” Erin warned.
“Anything will be an improvement,” Sara said as Ethan jumped down the mountain and flew to the start area where the challenge controls were. Soon there was a spherical drone floating up to the top and stopped in front of Kara. It shot her with a tiny stun blast, so low it basically did nothing, but it was enough to make her left leg buckle. She caught herself and remained standing, though Erin almost fell as well.
“Hit it,” Sara prompted.
Kara hesitated, then got shot again. Before the drone could fire another tiny blip, Kara raised her right arm and her Vorch’nas morphed into a lump over her hand as her emotions flared with anger. A white flash emitted and the drone vaporized in a cone of expanding debris that shot out away from the mountain top, then floated/fell to the ground below.
“O…kay,” Sara said, stretching out the word. “That works.”
“Sorry,” Kara said, recoiling again with her Vorch’nas returning to jewel mode.
“No, that’s fine. Kill a few more if it’ll help. We need to wake up the badass in you. You took too many hits you couldn’t defend against and you’re stuck in victim mode. You need to hit back and we can always build more drones. Blast as many as you want.”
As if on cue, three more appeared from below, floating up to eye level.
“Try punching one,” Aaron suggested, walking up and casually hitting one with his fist. It flew backwards a few meters, then seemingly annoyed, shot him with a tiny stun blast that he took with impunity.
Kara walked up to one and hit it, meekly, then hit the other as both came back closer and shot her with one of the weakest possible settings for the drones. She hit them again, a bit more forcefully, with Erin stepping up and working with her. They both punched and defended as Ethan gradually increased the difficulty level, letting Kara work her way through the active healing process while using Erin as a crutch.
Kara wasn’t going to be ok for a long time and they all could sense it, but she was making progress…and give an Archon progress, of any amount, and they would latch onto it with a death grip. Kara was no exception, though in her persisted a constant fear of losing what litt
le she had if the Dragons found out what had happened. Working to improve yourself while knowing it could all be lost was anti-motivational, knowing she could get hit with an attack she had no defense against, but Kara still eeked along for the next few hours before they called it quits.
Erin disconnected their battlemeld, still feeling a bit sick afterwards, with Sara taking over for her as the rest of the 1s split. Kara headed to a new set of quarters to sleep, with Sara staying with her and curling up in bed with an arm wrapped around her. Both to keep her company and to maintain the skin to skin link that allowed her to monitor and help adjust her mind as she continued to fight through the memories and damage of what had just happened.
Kara was a mess, but Sara and the other trailblazers weren’t going to let her out of their telepathic range until she pulled through this.
3
November 13, 4853
Khaterass System (Kiritak colony)
Mewsovex
Kara stopped at the base of the glacier, standing a few meters away from the icy cold river cascading down through a crack in the monstrous mass of ice as she looked up. It would be a hell of a climb for a normal person, but with her ability to melt handholds for herself it would just be a matter of slow and easy climbing for the Archon…assuming she didn’t just fly straight up.
But she was done hiking for the day, having already covered more than 30 miles in three separate snowstorms wearing nothing but a T-shirt, shorts, running shoes, and a backpack. She had her Vorch’nas if needed, and could cover herself with a protective layer of armor with a thought, but she wasn’t using it and had declined the standard Archon armor for this trip as well. Relying instead on her Rensiek to keep her internal body heat in and the arctic cold out.
She’d done this before in training, but had never maintained the constant effort this long. Feeling a bit strained, Kara decided this was as good as any place to make camp and pulled her backpack off, dropping it next to her foot as she shook her entire body to banish the snowflakes that were not melting on her skin, rather sticking there dryly. She ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out as well, before pulling out the tent canister and triggering it to deploy.
