by D. J. Holmes
Her hesitation almost proved fatal. Despite being thrown off by being hit, the Elder used Sarah’s momentary pause to re-aim his weapon. Sarah let out a scream, this one filled with pain and rage, as she felt a burning beam pierce her side. As she fell to the deck she felt blackness rise to take her. She knew there was no stopping it this time. In one last act of rage, she thumbed her blaster up to full power. As she hit the deck she raised her arm and got off one shot at the Elder who had overseen her mother’s death. Then the blackness won out.
Chapter 46
Slowly, Sarah became aware that she was awake. As soon as she did, she could hear the worried voices of Kevin and Alexandra calling to her through her neural implant. She ignored both. The medical nanites were doing their job but her side still ached horribly. More importantly, she knew there was an Elder alive on the bridge.
The sound of something slithering across the deck near her told her he was coming closer. Sarah knew who it was, the High Admiral. She had recognized his headdress just before his companion had shot her. Cracking an eye open, she saw the Admiral reach out with his laser rifle and poke her wound. It took all of Sarah’s strength and will to live not to cry out. If the nanites hadn’t already numbed the area, she would have given herself away.
Satisfied that she was dead. The High Admiral pulled out a COM unit with his free hand and spoke into it. At the same time, he pulled the rifle away. Sarah snapped out a hand and grabbed its muzzle. With all the force she had left, she ripped it out of his hands and rolled over, exposing her other arm. As she raised it, she levelled her pistol at his head.
“Don’t move,” she ordered.
The High Admiral raised both hands. For several seconds, Sarah just stared at him. She was trying to regain enough energy to stand. She was trying to get the measure of the being in front of her. She had processed a number of files on Gronkin back at Hope V. For hundreds of years he had been terrorizing the humans of Earth. Now, here he was, at her mercy.
“What do you want?” Gronkin asked, clearly growing impatient with the wait. “You didn’t go to all this trouble just to kill me?”
“No,” Sarah said as she pushed herself onto her knees. It was difficult as she had to keep her weapon trained on the High Admiral. “I have something else planned for you,” she continued as she stumbled to her feet. She couldn’t help a grunt escaping her lips.
“You are the one who stole the frigate aren’t you?” Gronkin said. “You are different to all the humans I have met before.”
“That’s probably because you haven’t met any free ones before,” Sarah said as she moved closer to the Admiral. She hoped that was it, there was no way he could know about the genetic engineering, was there?
“One of my subordinates had an interesting theory about you,” Gronkin said. “That you aren’t really human at all.”
Sarah’s words caught in her mouth. She wanted to deny it, but she feared that if she tried, Gronkin would be able to tell she was lying.
“You killed him, not long ago actually,” Gronkin went on, seemingly taking Sarah’s silence for permission. “I guess he underestimated you and your ship. However, I don’t wish to make the same mistake. I have an offer for you. If you really are part Elder, you could come with me back to the Elder Homeworlds. You could be welcomed into the Empire. With your skills, you could go far. Riches and wealth would be yours. You could do and go wherever you want.”
Sarah laughed, though it hurt her side. “You’re trying to use who I am to bribe me to join you? You know nothing about me. It sickens me that part of your DNA is within me. The only comfort I have is that I know that what I am will be what ends your race’s reign of tyranny.”
“Then what is it you want?” he asked. “Why have you fought your way to the bridge?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Sarah answered. “Arms behinds your back.” When the Admiral complied, Sarah cuffed his arms together. “Now sit down in your command chair.”
“You have made a terrible mistake,” the Admiral said as he slithered over to his chair. “You do realize that. Your actions today will just bring the full Elder fleet down on Earth.”
“I am not stupid. I know what I have started today,” Sarah said. She produced two restraints that she put around the command seat. With a neural command, they tightened around the Admiral, making sure he couldn’t move.
“Then you are crazy,” the Admiral spat. “Defeating me means nothing. Your world will burn.”
“Perhaps,” Sarah said as she pulled a wire from her utility belt and attached it to her neural implant. “But I’m going to get what I need from you first.”
The Admiral looked at her strangely for a moment, then his face contorted in horror as he saw what Sarah was holding. On the other end of the wire she had connected to herself was a connection that fitted an Elder neural implant. “What are you doing? You can’t, we’ll both go crazy,” he shouted as his voice broke.
“Call it an experiment,” Sarah said as she walked around behind the Admiral. “I believe you have overseen your fair share of such experiments in your time. I hope you’re ready to face a human who can use a neural implant.”
Reaching up, Sarah forced the wire into the Admiral’s exposed neural implant. At once, the bridge disappeared. Instead, she found herself looking at a distant green glowing sphere. Right away it moved closer to her. It was the Elder’s mind. She could sense traces of his thoughts and personality. Once their minds got closer, they circled one another, just as hers and Kevin’s had when they had imprinted.
Not this time you don’t, Sarah thought. Not holding anything back, she flung her mind towards the Admiral’s. With ease, she broke through his feeble defenses. She could feel his utter surprise as her mind forced its way through his. She needed his command codes, and she was going to get them. Systematically, she worked her way through his mind, examining everything she came across.
The Admiral tried his best to fend her off, but having no experience of this kind of thing, she could easily beat back his attacks. However, as she ripped through his mind in search of the information she wanted, she could feel the Admiral’s personality unravelling. She was literally tearing him apart. Ordinarily killing an Elder wasn’t something she thought would phase her. Yet, as she delved deeper and deeper into his mind, she began to sense more of his character, to see his memories, to feel what he was feeling. His fear and bewilderment were almost too much for her. Though he was evil, Sarah could still sense his own dreams and ambitions, his love for his family, things she was taking away from him. Guilt washed over her, shooting an Elder who was pointing a blaster at you and ripping a helpless prisoner apart were two very different things. As if the Admiral could sense her doubts, he pleaded with her for mercy.
His cries had the opposite effect for they brought back Sarah’s past. She conjured her dream about her mother and flung it at the Admiral. No mercy had been shown to her. That will let you know just how strong my resolve is, she thought to the Admiral. Then, after regathering her strength, she doubled her efforts to find the information she wanted.
As she continued to tear through the Admiral’s mind, she saw something off in the distance. A tight ball of thoughts. Even as she peered at it, it looked like barriers were being thrown up around it. He knew what I was after all along, Sarah thought.
In an instant, she moved her mind to the ball. She only took a second to examine it, then she pressed in against it. Prongs lashed out at her mind. She barely managed to fend them off. The Admiral’s defenses were far stronger than before. Nevertheless, she continued to press. Changing tactics in quick succession, she used one trick after another that Alexandra had taught her as she pressed against the barriers.
Slowly but surely, she felt the barriers around the ball of thoughts bend and snap. After the first one went, the others quickly followed. With a cry, she burst through the last one and found herself surrounded by Gronkin’s most secret thoughts. She could see his knowledge of fleet dispo
sitions, the Elder Homeworlds, the Ruling Council of the Elders, their feeble attempts to stop the Empire from crumbling and Gronkin’s own plans to do the same. She realized the Elder Empire was far from dead. It was stagnating, but there were those who wished to revive it. Those who even had plans to wrestle control of the Empire from its aging leaders and forge a new Empire. Even if the virus works, Sarah warned herself, the Elders will be back. They will find a way.
Sensing that her energy was fading, Sarah took as much of Gronkn’s knowledge as she could, making sure she got his command codes. Then she pulled herself out of his mind and broke their connection.
She almost fell over. Her head was spinning and felt very light. At the same time, pain was throbbing from her thigh and her side. The damage was obviously too much for her nanites to handle. For the third time, she felt like she was going to black out. Before she did, she sent the command codes to Alexandra. “I got them,” were her last thoughts.
*
This time when she woke up, Sarah let out a loud groan. Her whole body ached. Gently she opened her eyes, as she expected, light caused more pain. Glancing down at her body, she saw she was lying on some kind of portable bed. As she carefully looked around her, she quickly realized she was on the bridge of an Elder warship, though it wasn’t Destiny nor the Elder battleship. She couldn’t see anyone nearby, though she could sense Kevin.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re on board the Elder shipyard,” Director Simmons said with a smile as she walked into view. The elderly woman took Sarah’s hand in her own. “You did it. Earth is free. The virus worked. The remaining Elder ships stopped fighting as soon as Alexandra released it.”
Sarah barely had time to process Simmons’ words. Kevin had appeared at her other side and grabbed her other hand. “How do you feel? Are you alright? You had me worried.”
“I’ll be ok, I think,” Sarah smiled.
“Thank goodness,” Kevin said, relief washed over his face and through their bond. Despite the presence of his great grandmother, he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.
“You’ll be pleased to know the virus is spreading,” Alexandra said as she joined the conversation. “The remaining Elder ships left the Sol system five hours ago. Two of them should have already reached nearby Elder colonies and transmitted the virus.”
Sarah didn’t have words. It was almost impossible to believe they’d done it. Sorrow welled up inside her when she realized who wasn’t at her side. “Divar,” she said. “What happened to Hawk?”
“We boarded the corvette,” Simmons said as she squeezed Sarah’s hand. “There were no survivors.”
Sarah hung her head, tears forming in her eyes. Divar gave everything for me, she thought. So that I could go home. He never even got to see his own home or family in the end.
“There is someone here who wants to see you,” Simmons said as she stepped back from Sarah’s side.
When a man stepped in to take her place, Sarah tensed.
“Hello Sarah,” her dad said. “I am deeply sorry about your friend. May I?” he asked as he motioned towards her hand.
Sarah didn’t know what to do or say. In the end, it was a mental push from Kevin that made her speak. “Yes,” she mumbled.
“Your mother would be so proud of you,” her dad said as he took her hand gently. “Of who you have become, of what you have done. I’m sorry for everything, for her, for what happened to you as a child. For having you abducted on Earth. I hope that one day, you will find a way to forgive me.”
Sarah didn’t need a neural link to her father to read his thoughts. They were written all over his face. He was scared that his actions had ruined their relationship. But she knew he would make the same choice he had all those years ago. Even knowing the cost. Sarah was about to say that she could never forgive him. Her mother’s death was just too raw. But then she thought of Divar, and all the others who had sacrificed their lives today and over the last two thousand years. Thanks to the history files she had processed, she knew every one of their names. Her mother was one of them, and in a way, her father was too. She could see on his face that his life had never been the same since that day. As she began to guess how he must have felt standing on that podium for the first time, her heart went out to him. Taking a firmer grip of his hand, she gave it a squeeze. She didn’t trust herself to say she could forgive him, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings either. As they stared into each other’s eyes, the silence in the room grew long.
Eventually Simmons coughed and cleared her throat. “As much as I know you need more rest, and medical attention. We woke you up because we still need something from you”
Sarah went to ask Simmons what she meant, but as she turned her head to look at the Director, she saw she was looking up. Following her stare, Sarah saw an interface helmet. It dawned on Sarah where she was. “This is the bridge, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Simmons answered. “The Virus caused it to vent its atmosphere into space. No Elders survived. We boarded it, but almost nothing will respond to our commands. We need to see if you can do it again. We need this shipyard up and running as soon as possible.”
“Stand back,” Sarah said as she let go of Kevin and her father’s hands. “Lower it,” she ordered. As the interface helmet came down, she took a deep breath and prepared herself. In her weak and tired state, she knew imprinting with another artificial intelligence was going to be an ordeal.
As soon as the helmet lowered over her eyes, she felt its prong slot into her implant. It sent a jolt of electricity through her mind. Then images rapidly appeared. She saw her childhood home, then Earth from space, then the slave markets of Kashal, then she was on Burakko, then she was a slave on Draxler’s ship. As the images kept coming they forced her to relive the last year and a half of her life. She fought Destiny again as she piloted Lady Luck. She relived the moment when she discovered Klixar had destroyed Aral. She remembered the fear that had overtaken her when Divar had been abducted, then the anger that had led her to find him and get him back. She was embarrassed as images of Ranack appeared, including one of him kissing her. Her rage at his betrayal still felt raw as she watched the battle she had been forced to fight with the two Elder frigates. Soon, she was re-experiencing her meeting with Melissa on Berius. Then she was on Earth, being pursued by wolves. Next, she was standing in front of her father, almost ready to kill him. As the images got closer and closer to the present, they became more numerous. Her time on Hope V, her escape and return, the final preparations for the battle and the battle itself, almost played out in real time. The worst thing of all was having to watch Divar’s death again. Sarah cried as she saw him throw his ship in front of the Elder anti-matter missiles to protect her.
Then, as quickly as they appeared, the images were gone, instead she was staring down at Earth. It only took her a couple of seconds to realize she was looking at her homeworld through the shipyard’s external sensors. Once again, she was struck by how beautiful her home planet was.
“Hello Sarah, my name is Cassidy,” a voice said into her mind. “What are your orders?”
Sarah smiled. It had worked, Earth had a fighting chance.
With a thought, she ordered the interface helmet to ascend. Then, after a massive yawn, she laid her head back down on her pillow. Simmons, Alexandra, Kevin and Cassidy all tried to talk to her. Sarah barely heard them, as soon as her head hit the pillow she was asleep. For the first time in her life, her nightmare didn’t trouble her. Instead of visions of Elders and executions, Sarah dreamed of the future.
The End.
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Rising Book 1’ on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. There are four books out in the series so far.
Here’s the blurb:
It’s the year 2465, two hundred years since the stars were opened to humanity by the invention of the shift drive. So began the First Interstellar Expansion Era, catapulting humanity into a deadly race for the limited resources of navigable space. Now tensions between the human nations are threatening to boil over into open hostility.
Into this maelstrom steps the exiled Commander James Somerville of the Royal Space Navy. Banished from London to the survey ship HMS Drake he is about to make a discovery that may change his fortunes and throw Britain into a deadly war with its closest rival. The Void War is a military science fiction novel and first book by new author D. J. Holmes.
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