connection. I count out numbers to try to calm down. My body is failing and my heart is racing. I reach number fourteen and then stop. I feel a surge of adrenaline in my bloodstream and I’m having a hard
time staying put.
“We need you to cover for us,” Finn says when connection is made. “We will attempt to exit the
plantation.”
“The shields are back up,” the response comes. “We can’t hit the plantation. We’ve detected
aerial activity. Drones should be approaching.”
The realization hits us hard. We struggle for words that don’t come.
“How are we ever going to get out of here?” Joshua says.
“Theo, we have four touchpads,” Finn says. “Will it be enough?”
“I’ll make sure it is,” Theo says.
We hand him over our touchpads and he begins his magic.
“What does that mean?” Joshua says.
“It means the aliens have focused their resources so much on Freya’s powers, they have no idea
what we can do as a group,” Zoe says.
I find the energy to smile a little. “Zoe’s right,” I say. “We’re pretty formidable even without a
receptor. We should never forget that. We used to monitor plantations and record all changes.”
“That should do it,” Theo says. He hands over the touchpads. One for Zoe, one for Finn, one for
me. The last one he keeps for himself.
Joshua supports Zoe onto her feet. We type in the coordination codes that Theo has intercepted
and wait for the shield to respond. Our guess proves to be right. The aliens have not predicted we’d
know every nuance of their security systems. The shield goes down.
“That should give the space pods a small window to fire,” Theo says.
Finn relays the message. We exit the building just as the pods start firing at the Sliman around
the Armory. They scatter away taking cover wherever they can find it.
We run toward the gate as fast as we can trying to stay close to the buildings. A few yards away
we stop as we see five guards around the gate. We look back at the Armory.
“They should get out now or they’ll stay trapped,” Joshua says.
Finn tries to contact Colonel Adams to no avail.
“I’ll get closer to send the message,” Theo says. Nya loads her shock bow. Before Theo can say
anything, she plants a kiss on his lips. They set off toward the Armory like fast-moving shadows.
“Time’s up. The shield’s been restored again,” Finn says to me. “Are you strong enough to
play?”
He climbs up a tree so fast that Joshua has to shake his head to make sure he’s not dreaming.
“Finn’s a hyper monkey when he climbs,” Zoe says smiling.
“He’s already on the tree by the gate,” Tilly says. “I hear the rustling.”
We ready the pulse guns in our hands and aim at the guards. One of them is hit but the remaining
four start shooting at us. We take cover behind the half wall of a destroyed store house.
They are so loud all of us can hear their heavy footsteps until we hear a pulse gun blasting away.
Finn’s shooting at them from the tree. I nod at Biscuit and we both come out of hiding to create a
second front. The guards find themselves in a crossfire of pulse energy blasts. I don’t feel anything for them as they fall to the ground one by one. It’s us or them.
We are at the gate when the emergency sirens go off drowning out all other sounds. All systems
have returned to their normal capacity which means the aliens could know by now their prisoners
have escaped.
I quickly scan the area behind us. The Exodus troops come running to the gate with Theo and
Nya leading them. I let out a sigh of relief and hug Finn who emerges from the shadows.
“Let’s go,” he yells.
I almost lose my balance when I come face-to-face with a horrifying Sliman. He blocks my way
to the exit with his body and he bares his teeth at me like a rabid animal. I know right away that this Sliman is unlike any I have seen.
He is from the Ghost Legion. I know no pulse gun will stop him. My brain freezes unable to find
my next action. Then the screams begin behind me. I can’t turn. I dare not take my eyes off the beast in front of me, but I know the Ghost Legion has been released into the field for the first time.
The Sliman reaches out to grab me when Finn lands on his back and sinks his jagged-tooth knife
into the ghost warrior’s eye. The Sliman lets out an inhuman cry and tries to pull the knife out. I shoot a blast right through his open mouth. He falls to the ground with a loud thud.
I turn back to see Nya launching arrows at incredible speeds. I can’t make out the Ghost Legion
Sliman who are mixed in with all the other Sliman as they all come for us now that the firing from
above has stopped.
“Take Zoe to safety,” I yell at Joshua.
He nods and takes off with Zoe in his arms. He takes three or four strides outside the gate before
he falls to the ground with a hole in his back, right between his shoulder blades. Zoe rolls off a few feet away from Joshua’s body.
My heart stops. I reach for my receptor thinking I could heal him. My hand touches empty space.
I run over to Joshua. He’s lying on his stomach with his face in the mud. I turn him over and look for signs of life. I can’t find any. I pounce on his chest. I try to breathe air in his lungs. I only realize I’m crying when I feel the saltiness of the tears on my tongue.
“Freya, stop!” I hear someone call.
I look up and see Zoe crawling her way to me.
“I can’t give up,” I say through my tears.
“You’re not,” she says. “I am.”
I stare at her unable to grasp the meaning of her words when Finn lands right next to me. He
takes a look at Joshua, then at Zoe.
“Go,” I say finally understanding there’s nothing I can do.
Finn rests his hand on my hair for a single moment. “I will be back,” he says and then grabs Zoe
and runs to the woods.
I get up and ready myself to join the battle. My gun quivers in my hand like a poisonous snake
ready to attack.
I’ve barely walked back through the gate when I realize the Ghost Legion can smell me. Three
huge monsters cut themselves away from the fight sniffing out the air like wild hounds until they spot me. They drool like dogs over the prospect of capturing me.
They would catch me easily if I ran. Even regular Sliman are impossible to run from with the
exception of Rabbit and possibly Finn. I could blast away and hold my ground for a minute or two
until Finn returns. But that way I’d be putting his life at risk as well. I make up my mind. I do my best run with my diminishing strength right at the ghost warriors waving my gun and firing at them. I will leave them no choice but to kill me.
I am determined to make this work, to give everyone a better chance to escape, when someone
grabs me from behind. A Sliman guard. I kick and scream frantically searching for some skin to touch
to create a bond when the Sliman whispers in my ear, “You have a present from Malzod.”
I am stunned at his words and my focus decreases for a second. All the time needed for my heart
to revel in what can only be described as a miracle. Malzod with a group of his rebels dressed in all black without insignias or cloaks enter the plantation and attack the Ghost Legion and the Sliman
guards.
At the tail of the group, I catch sight of Damian walking with uncertain strides, looking lost in
the heat of the battle.
For a brief moment I don’t know if I should go to hi
m or wait for him to see me first. I don’t
know who he is right now and even if he can be trusted. But in the end I can’t control myself. I run to him calling out his name.
His expression goes from disbelief to astonishment to joy all in a fraction of a second. He stares
into my eyes and then throws himself into battle. He targets a group of Sliman that have surrounded
Theo and Nya and pounces down on them bringing them to their knees.
I watch hypnotized as he turns his attention to the Ghost Legion warriors. There are seven of
them that I can see and they’re huge, vicious and ugly. I recover from my stupor and pull out my pulse gun.
It’s impossible to know what’s going on around me so I concentrate on one thing. Stay alive to
get as many of the enemy as I can.
Within seconds, I know the forces have shifted and we have the upper hand. I steal a glance
toward the aliens in their armored vehicle as they put it in motion. It becomes apparent that they
cannot yield the power of a receptor or they would be using it by now. I dart at them determined to
stall them enough to make their escape impossible.
But then something unexpected happens. A dark, massive figure steps through the chaos of the
battle. Kroll.
My heart freezes. If Kroll is allowed to be in battle, it can only mean one thing. He has been
turned to serve the Empress again. And if so, he can turn this battle quickly in favor of the Shadow
Empire.
I turn and scan the field for Damian. He might be the only one who knows what has happened to
Kroll and how he can be eliminated. I see Finn fighting next to Nya with Tilly close behind. Finn’s
back so at least Zoe must be safe in the woods. I can’t locate Damian and I start to think it might be for the best. I don’t want to see what would happen if he decided to take on Kroll.
I take off trying to find some cover so I can think but then I sense a presence behind me. I turn to
see that my fear has materialized. Kroll has found me. We consider each other for a while. He looks
different. There’s a long scar across his forehead. His hair is unkempt and his eyes darker. His face is blank without a single sign of the reverence he once held for me.
I get a chill down my spine when I notice the spikes on his knuckles. He raises a massive gun at
me, slowly, deliberately as if trying to determine what part of me he should obliterate first.
“You said you’d protect me with your life,” I scream. “You said we were connected. That we
could read each other’s minds. If there’s any part of you left in there, I can feel you too. I always could.”
I say the words but there’s no energy. I am fading from the world fast. My heart is winding down
and cannot withstand more of this.
Kroll remains unmoved. His glass eyes dart around in their sockets.
“You said I could sense your presence and I did,” I go on with tears in my eyes. “I knew you
were standing behind me. I knew it now and I knew it then.”
He pulls the safety off his gun and takes aim at my head. Then he spins around and blows up the
armored vehicle and the aliens inside it with a single blast of his extra large gun.
He turns back to me. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just messing with you.”
“What the hell, Kroll?” I yell, but he pushes me away when I try to get closer as he sets off to
fight anybody who stands in his way.
He destroys everything in his path with a ferocity that’s hard to watch even if you are on his
side. He prefers to use his bare hands. Bodies fly up in the air and land on the ground left and right.
The air is heavy with smoke and ash. Our forces dominate until it becomes clear that the
plantation is down. Plantation-15 is actually down. We didn’t plan for that when we came here. All
we wanted was to get our prisoners back and destroy the Armory and genetic material.
I force myself not to think about the casualties just yet. They are heavy and painful like an
infected wound. But we need to get the children out and lead them to Spring Town somehow. I should
look for a receptor. Maybe even get the one that belongs to the Empress herself.
But there’s no time for that. Malzod’s voice reaches us through the plantation’s speakers which
he must have taken over. The drones can be seen now and will be here any minute.
I don’t know which direction to go when I see Damian finally. I run to him looking for guidance
and reassurance. I’m not myself in this moment. Even in the darkness of the night I see that he is badly bruised but determined.
“We need to get the kids out,” I yell. “And kill that old bitch.”
“She’s not here,” he yells back. “Let’s get to the dorms.”
We run among the debris and the scattered dead to get to the children. This is not the first
plantation we’ve liberated and I hope it will not be the last. I’m happy to see that Finn, Nya and Theo have beaten us to it and the children are already forming two long lines.
“Damian!” Nya says and hugs him.
“Biscuit and Tilly?” I say.
“With Malzod,” Finn says. “Let’s get out of here.”
We begin to march to the woods when I finally fall holding onto my chest. Damian picks me up
like a baby in his arms. I want to tell him I love him, but don’t dare to put out the energy to speak. My heart has nothing left.
“Careful with her,” Finn says to Damian slapping his back. “She already died once today.”
Damian glances at me with shock. I don’t know why but it makes me smile.
19
We’re under attack. The century long grace period for Exodus L21 is officially over. Missiles of
destructive light and liquid explosives keep testing the shields every hour or so. Our defensive
systems are working at their maximum capacity to ward off what is to come, a fully-blown assault
with the empire’s most powerful weapons.
Our life support systems are losing power to the defense shield and have shown some instability
already. There have been interruptions in power supply and two incidents of superficial cracks in the outer shield that we have been able to repair. It’s anyone’s guess how long we will hold up when the
true bombing begins.
My eyes sting when I get out of my bed for the first time since we got back on Exodus forty-eight
hours ago. Images keep popping up making it practically impossible for my brain to shut down. I sit
up and take out my communication device. Damian and Kroll have been quarantined in the hospital
since we got back as a precautionary measure.
“I’m coming over,” I tell the technician who answers my call and I hang up without waiting for
an answer.
I take the long way to the hospital wing and avoid the moving walkways to give myself a chance
to unwind before I see Damian. I don’t want him to take a look at me and know I’ve lost my courage
again. Everything I set in motion backfires in the end. I should have known by now.
The technician on call leads me to a viewing window where I can see Damian sitting on a chair
held securely by straps around his wrists and ankles.
The technician offers me a set of earphones and a microphone but I quickly shove them aside.
“I’m going in,” I say.
His face goes pale. “It wouldn’t be advisable,” he says. “We’re not done testing him yet. There
might be things we don’t know.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I say.
Reluctantly, he takes me around a hallway to the back side of the
room and unlocks a door.
Damian gives me a wide smile when the door closes behind me.
“I thought you’d forgotten all about me,” he says.
I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. The proximity of his warm body relaxes me. We
share a few quiet seconds. The world slows down and I can fully experience the essence of silence.
“I think I prefer you when you’re tied down and at my mercy,” I whisper in his ear. I sit on his
lap and start undoing the strap around his right wrist. He runs his fingers through my hair as soon as his hand is free.
I touch his face and kiss him again.
“I was unconscious for twelve hours in the plantation,” he says. “I have no idea what they did to
me during that time.”
“Yet, you seem to be in perfect control of yourself,” I say undoing the strap on his left wrist.
“The people here are worried I might have what you had, a tracker chip that’s like a ticking
bomb.”
“And what do you think?” I say kissing his eyebrows.
“I think I will be safe,” he says. “And maybe Kroll will, too.”
I look at him curiously. “How would you know? Especially about Kroll.”
“In the confinement cells where we were kept before we got moved to the labs for the
procedures and testing, Zolkon came to see us,” he says.
“Zolkon?” I say stunned. “He’s everywhere, isn’t he?”
“He explained that the aliens don’t understand how emotion works and, therefore, have no
control over how it is formed or stored. He said that if we learned to compartmentalize and preserve
emotion in a safe spot in our brain, they would not be able to access it.”
“Ah, did he tell you how to do that? It doesn’t sound easy.”
“He did. Zolkon told us how to lock access to the part of our brain that controls emotion with
visualization and self-hypnosis techniques. Did you know that Sliman are especially skilled at that?”
I nod. I remember Wudak talking about hypnosis and how he was able to block entire parts of
Pip’s memory.
“I had no idea if it had worked,” Damian goes on, “until the moment I saw you and everything
was released in me again.”
“Do you think Zolkon is on our side after all?” I say still trying to accept the fact he saved my
life and then did it a second time in the same day.
beyond the river of time Page 17
