by Cheree Alsop
She pushed her thoughts to Tariq, showing him the things she had learned about the Cherum. His eyes closed as he was flooded with the images. When she stopped pushing and he opened his eyes again, anger sparked in them.
“They need to be stopped,” he agreed, his hands clenched so tightly around his knives that his knuckles showed white.
“Warden, we’ve found the Center,” a warrior called.
Blue blood dripped from the slit mouth of the Cherum that lay motionless on the floor. Liora walked past without glancing down. She knew it was there; she didn’t have to see it. It felt wrong that the creature should bleed. For a race so ruthless as to brainwash an army to do their dirty work, then move onto the planet and kill the entire army when the planet was theirs, she thought they shouldn’t bleed. They didn’t deserve the honor.
“We didn’t know what we were looking for, but we knew it when we saw it,” a humanoid warrior with bright blue eyes and orange hair said.
When she looked at him, he bowed his head in deference. He couldn’t have been much younger than she.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
His gaze when he looked at her again showed his surprise. He shook his head and lowered it.
“I don’t have one.”
“You did before you were given to the Cherum,” she pressed. “What was it?”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Korgutan.”
Liora nodded. “Well done finding the Center, Korgutan. Tell the others I want to deal with it myself.”
He immediately jogged ahead.
“This isn’t going to end well, you know,” Tariq said from her other side.
“I’ll find out how to summon the ship and the army will take care of the rest,” Liora replied.
“That’s not what I meant,” Tariq pointed out.
Liora refused to answer. She knew exactly what Tariq was talking about, and she didn’t want to go there.
Tariq must have felt the opposite. “They’re all going to die. You saw what the Cherum do to them. The chip can drive them mad.”
“If we let it,” Liora replied.
Tariq shook his head. “We don’t know how to control it.”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
Liora refused to say anything else.
They walked down the hallway and stepped into the door Korgutan held for them. Liora stopped short at what she saw.
Tariq gave a grunt of surprise and his hold tightened on his blade.
“That’s not going to be any help here,” she said quietly.
“I’m not sure anything is,” Tariq replied.
Chapter 9
Liora stared at the being that took up the majority of the domed room. It looked like a Cherum with its pale skin, long neck, and fingers twice-again as long as its arms, but the size was far different. The being towered above them, bigger by far than Liora had pictured.
The Cherum sat in the room with its long legs bent at the knees and its neck bowed against the curve of the ceiling. The hands, each of which were taller than Tariq, lay open and the fingers followed the circular walls, reaching halfway around. It looked as though the room had been built around the being, encasing its vastness so that it couldn’t escape. Red eyes stared down at Liora. She felt as though she could step inside of them and be swallowed up by their anger.
“You are destroying the Cherum.”
Liora answered its unspoken words aloud for Tariq’s sake and for the warriors who filed into the room behind her. The blue blood that covered their blades said multitudes. She wondered where the Vos had gone.
“You are destroying worlds.”
The Cherum’s red gaze glared down at her.
“Are you judgmental of our methods, Damaclan? Ironic, considering that we have patterned our means after your ancestors who destroyed our planet and left us homeless.”
The response surprised her, but Liora didn’t let it show.
“These planets are not Damaclan,” she replied. “No matter what my ancestors did to you, the Vos and the others you have killed were innocent.”
“We were innocent.”
The growl rocked her mind with its force. It was all she could do to keep her hands at her sides and not attempt in vain to block out the sound by covering her ears.
Liora retorted with a push of her own.
Summon your ship.
The Cherum’s eyes flickered to yellow, then back to red.
No.
The denial was absolute. If Liora could not get the ship to land, she couldn’t stop the rest of the Cherum. There had to be a way.
“I’ve got to push at him, but he’s strong,” Liora said quietly to Tariq.
“Use my strength,” he told her.
Liora would have normally refused, but she felt the force of the Cherum’s push. It was going to take more than she had.
Liora accepted the hand Tariq offered. It was something she had never tried before. She didn’t want Tariq to be the one she experimented on, but she had no choice. She pulled gently, and felt as much as heard the surprised intake of breath he gave at the show of her abilities. Strength filled her.
If you won’t give me answers, I’ll take them, Liora said. She pushed with their combined strength.
Liora found her ability blocked as though she hit a metal door. She gathered her strength and honed it to a point, then shoved it at the Cherum with every bit of energy she had.
The Cherum’s head rocked back and its eyes swirled with a multitude of colors. Its defenses dropped and Liora surged into its thoughts.
Where the others had been a part of its network, this giant’s thoughts were a tangled web of synapses, sending out commands that went nowhere due to its slain Cherum. It was obvious the loss of the being’s underlings had taking a toll.
Liora found a wide path where the majority of the Cherum’s thoughts pooled. She followed it along a winding tapestry of images and memories, sorting through them as quickly as she could.
She paused.
A great spacecraft unlike anything she had seen before surfaced in the Cherum’s mind. It was filled with thoughts of clan. There weren’t exactly the emotions she associated with family, but it was more like how she felt about the Damaclan race. She belonged; if there was anything more to it than that, she didn’t care to explore it.
Her heart sped up at the next thought that surfaced from the Cherum’s mind.
“The ship is already on its way,” she told Tariq.
“Get out of my head!” the Cherum thought and shouted at her.
Liora stumbled back from the force of the command. Tariq caught her before she fell.
The connection vanished. Liora looked up into the huge being’s eyes which showed angry, dark red.
“Your reign of terror is at an end,” Liora said.
“We took the lives of lesser races so that ours could live,” the Cherum replied. ”We are the superior race. We deserve to flourish.”
“Not preying on the lives of other people and planets that you just throw away like garbage,” Liora pointed out.
“They are ours to use however we wish.” The Cherum glared down at her and said as well as pushed, ”No mere Damaclan with the ability to mindspeak is going to change that.”
“You don’t know who you’re talking to,” Tariq said.
Liora gave a grim smile. “And I’m not alone.”
At her gesture, Tariq stepped aside. The army of Vos flooded into the chamber. They scaled the walls on their quick, padded feet, surrounding the Cherum who glared at them as if they were a pestilence. Unfortunately for the Cherum, they looked at the being the same way.
“It’s time for your race to be done,” Liora said.
“Your time will come soon enough,” the Cherum replied.
Liora walked out of the room. As soon as she and Tariq stepped through the door, it closed and she heard the whisper of thousands of feet thundering along the floor and walls. Pain flashed through Li
ora’s mind, then silenced.
One of the warriors, the same one with the blue eyes and orange hair, asked, “What are we waiting for?”
Liora looked around at the army awaiting her answer. They were silent, but covered in the blood of their enemies.
“The Cherum used you,” she told them. “Their plan was to end your lives using the same microchips they implanted in your brains for battle.”
Several of the warriors glanced at each other. Surprised looks were exchanged. Doubt and betrayal showed among the myriad of emotions.
“They’ve been doing this for centuries,” Liora continued. “They buy an army, microchip them for efficiency, and use them to wipe out the population of whatever planet they choose. They’ve done this countless times, and even more lives have been forfeit by their lack of respect for a living soul. Unfortunately for them, with all the planets in this galaxy, they chose Basttist.”
Murmurs rose up among the warriors. Scaled faces showed anger while horns rattled and sharp teeth were bared.
Liora lifted a hand. “I know you’re angry.” She felt as much as saw Tariq’s hands clench into fists beside her. “I know the control you have to channel in order to keep from tearing this place apart.” She paused, looked at the desperate eyes of the betrayed warriors around her, and gave them what they needed. “You will have your opportunity to finish this once and for all. The great ship comes, and when it does, you can exact your revenge and make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Shouts and yells of triumph spread through the hallway and rang in her ears. Pity filled her. These members of mortalkind had been lied to, bought with blood money from desperate families, and promised to be released from their duties as soon as the task was complete. Finding out that they were considered junk to be slain and tossed aside as soon as their usefulness was done was hard to swallow. She saw it in the flashing eyes, heard it in the angry mutters, and watched hands tighten on weapons.
The Vos would have their planet back. The door in the wall opened and the scaled creatures returned silently, covered in the blue blood of their enemy. Nods of approval passed from them to Liora. She had given what she had promised.
Her heart tightened. There was one last thing she had to show them.
“Where are you going?” Tariq asked, falling in at her side.
The warriors and Vos followed without question. The sound of boots, padded feet, and the quiet whisper of the Vos’ claws along the floor, walls, and ceiling surrounded her.
“The Cherum lied to me as much as they did to the warriors,” Liora said. “The Vos have a right to know the truth and act according to their need.”
Tariq’s expression shows his confusion, but he followed her with the rest.
Liora led the way along the winding halls to the top of the complex, then through the door at the end and back down. She felt sick with the knowledge of what she had done. She could pretend like it hadn’t happened, but the Vos would always wonder what end had come to their family members. They deserved better.
When Liora approached, the door to the end opened. She heard gasps of shock from the warriors around her. Sadness filled the gazes of the Vos. She stepped aside and let them pass. After the last Vos and warrior had entered, she and Tariq followed behind. One glance at his face showed that he guessed what had happened.
“It was a slaughter,” one of the warriors said.
Liora nodded without speaking. She could feel the thoughts of the Vos pushing against her, filled with sadness and pain as they looked through the bodies to see who had been slain. She took a steeling breath and pushed her memories at them, showing them how the Cherum had set her up and how their family members had attacked, thinking she was an enemy.
“How is this possible?” Korgutan asked. He pointed at the body of a Vos that was caught between that of the Vos and the Cherum. It had the orange scales and padded, clawed feet, but also the long white neck and big eyes of the Cherum.
“The Vos can change form,” she replied. “When I came in here, they were disguised as Cherum. They attacked me, thinking I was with the Cherum even though the Cherum had sent me in here to die.”
“What army did you use to fight them?” Korgutan asked.
Liora shook her head. Her quiet words sounded loud to her ears. “It was just me.”
The shocked silence that fell over the crowd was complete. Only the Vos, who didn’t understand what they were saying, continued to shuffle from body to body, taking note of their fallen comrades. The sorrow in their round black eyes ate at Liora. She had thought they would be angry and perhaps attack her as she deserved; instead, the sight of the bodies had taken the fight from them, leaving only sorrow in its wake.
“You are one of us,” Korgutan said.
It would have been the easy way out. Throwing blame onto a microchip in her brain that induced rage would have been met with acceptance, an acceptance she didn’t deserve.
Liora shook her head again. Tariq’s hand slipped into hers and he squeezed her fingers with a reassuring pressure.
“I am not one of you. I don’t have a microchip from the Cherum.”
“So you could have stopped?” a girl with long green hair and yellow skin asked.
Liora lowered her gaze from the girl’s searching red eyes. “I am a Damaclan. My race is a brutal one. It’s in my blood. Right or wrong, it’s who I am. I could have stopped, maybe, but I didn’t want to.”
Tariq lifted a hand to still the talking that followed.
“Liora Day is a Damaclan and more. She is also human, and as such, she holds the qualities necessary to lead you against the Cherum and seek your revenge.” He waved a hand, indicating the fallen Vos. “She was deceived just as you have been, and she is equipped to bring you the justice you and the countless planets and warriors that have fallen deserve. Will you give her that chance?”
The silence that followed was charged with uncertainty. Even the Vos paused in their sifting through the bodies as though they felt the crackle of energy that meant a change was about to happen.
Korgutan, the warriors’ chosen mouthpiece, stepped forward.
“You saved us from them,” he said. He spread a hand tipped with blue fingernails, indicating the bodies around the room. “Any one of us could have done this.”
“Or been killed doing this,” the green-haired girl pointed out.
Korgutan nodded and lifted his voice so that all of the warriors could hear. “Alone, we are angry and helpless to act in the face of that anger. With Warden Day, we have a chance to regain some of our dignity and fight for our lives back. She chose to take a stand, and because of that, we have a chance. Who will follow her?”
Every warrior in the room roared a reply. The Vos scattered and regrouped on the wall behind Liora, a scaled army fueled with rage at the loss of their loved ones.
“When will the ship arrive?” Tariq asked.
It took Liora moment to realize he had spoken. She tore her gaze away from the warriors around her and gave the human her full attention.
“What did you ask?”
Tariq repeated, “When will the Cherum’s ship land on Basttist?”
Liora thought of the images from the Cherum. “It was no longer in contact with them before we reached the chamber. The atmosphere interferes with the signal. The ship will be landing at any moment.”
“Is there a chance it warned them about what happened here?” the green-haired girl asked.
Liora shook her head. “There wasn’t a chance with the interference. They didn’t appear to have the need to be in constant contact, so the element of surprise is still ours.”
Tariq nodded. “We need to use it to our best advantage. I have an idea.”
Tariq first told Liora his plan, then she had him address her army in the main corridor of the Cherum’s building. When the Vos approached, their scaled faces covered in blue and red blood and the emotions of frustration wafting from them, Liora gently pushed Tariq’s strategy into
their minds. The fact that they still trusted her after what she had shown them touched her deeply.
Everything hinged on the Vos’ agreement to the plan; luckily, the Vos didn’t appear to relish the idea of allowing more Cherum to overrun their planet until both their race and Basttist were destroyed. They changed shape the way they had when Liora was first attacked in the other half of the building. Guilt filled her at the thought that she had slain so many of their race. She swore to do whatever she could to see that the rest of them survived both her presence and the Cherums’.
The ship landed in a plume of yellow dust. Liora watched from her position behind several boulders that were hot to the touch; when a drop of her perspiration fell on them, a puff of steam rose up. The Vos in the form of Cherum stood in rows the way she had seen them do in the giant Cherum’s mind. They didn’t flinch when the yellow dirt washed over them in a cloud. She could feel thoughts pounding against her from the Cherum in the ship, but she didn’t answer in the hopes that silence would have more of a chance to bring them out then a stranger’s answer.
Liora’s strategy proved correct. A great door opened on the side of the pale blue ship in the circular way they did in the complex. The oval widened and a ramp slid forward. The Cherum within the ship hurried down on their tiny feet, content with the knowledge that the race of the planet had been destroyed as well as the army. Tools showed in many of the long-fingered hands, instruments to best analyze the planet so they might attain the greatest wealth from Basttist.
The Cherum who reached the ground first paused at the lack of response from the others. Liora felt pushing again from another Center on the ship. She wondered how many more of the controlling beings were hidden within the blue walls. She was determined to find them all.
She gave the push, urging the Vos to attack.
“Now,” Tariq shouted, feeling her command.
Korgutan stood and the warriors who had waited so silently buried within the hot sand burst free.
The Vos changed to their scaled forms and swarmed up the ramp, tearing down Cherum as they did so. The warriors followed close behind, taking out any survivors that escaped the Vos’ onslaught. The last warrior and Vos vanished into the ship, leaving only bodies along the ramp.
