by J.P. Yager
The crew of the Wrath burned across countless galaxies. They made a couple of stops within the Inner Rim, near Ruveran-monitored space. It was the only direction left that led away from the anomaly. The force drive ran smoother than it ever had. Oran had outdone himself.
Trevor continued to watch in disgust as the older couple kept stealing away to meet up like kids. They couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Trevor missed the piece-of-crap a-hole version of his uncle that he had always known. He was tempted to bring up his aunt Maura to dampen their spirits, but it felt too wrong to do so. Unlike him, his uncle was finally moving on with his life.
Then after a day’s travel from Crystalis, Kaida figured out how to interpret the coordinates Raxus had left. Trevor inputted them. The NAV routed them toward a solar system no one onboard was familiar with.
“It’s near the Center Vortices,” Trevor said to them both. “Which is within Ruveran space.”
“Where better to hide than right underneath their nose?” Nathan asked. He took the controls from cruise control and pointed them to their new destination.
The force drive went full bars, and off they shot. The computer showed they would hit their destination within the hour.
When they were engaged into the jump, Nathan turned to Kaida. “Can you give us a minute?” She nodded and went below.
Nathan sat at the controls quietly, going over what he was going to say to Trevor. It wasn’t going to be easy to tell him that after all this, they would part ways. He still wanted the best for his nephew, but he was done with all these space battles. He was getting tired of risking his life every time he flew. He just wanted to enjoy his remaining years with Kaida. Even if it was a matter of days. He also had to unload something else off his chest. No secrets.
“I don’t know how to say this,” he began.
Trev looked up from his readings. “All right.”
“I know I’ve been hard on you.” Nathan looked back and saw it all. He had been tough on the kid. But his father had been tough on him and that’s he had raised Arilyn. A man had to grow up to be strong enough to handle whatever came. Babying young men only created sensitive creampuffs. He knew he wasn’t the best people person, but he was a good leader and that would do. “Look, I’m getting too old for this. I’ll just get it out there. The Armiger told me something you need to know. Scott, your father, he was working on something…so top secret the Armiger’s own son didn’t know either.”
“What?” An echo of Nya’s phantom came back to him. “You know what your father was working on.”
Nathan cleared the lump from his throat. “Your father created rift technology.”
The air was knocked from Trevor’s lungs. “No, he didn’t. He was trying to find a cure for me.” The words came out before he knew it. He knew that Nathan had been lying—he hadn’t known about his father—and he was regretful for letting out his secret all in one moment.
“A cure for what?” Nathan eyed him, concerned. He had been looking worse and worse since leaving the Helcarion.
Trevor felt the tremor attack coming on from the stress; the fever welled up, and he tried to leave before it hit. I don’t want him to see this.
Nathan held him back. “Hang on. Where you going? Answer the question.”
“Get out of my way.” He tried to push past him but couldn’t. Nathan held him there.
Too late. Trevor fell to the ground in an uncontrollable fury of shaking. He held his breath as it tore through him. A scream like he had never experienced burst from his mouth. Tendrils of sharp pain rushed through his body. A feeling of being poked with needles ran up and down his spine as he shook. When it finally dissipated, he took a deep breath. He slowly pulled himself off the ground, tears streaming down his face.
“What the…?” Nathan began. He looked his nephew up and down. Sweat poured from the young man’s forehead, his eyes were red, and his body wavered like he could faint at any moment.
Trev sat back into his copilot’s seat and concentrated on breathing. Not up to discussing it, he said simply, “Now you know.” He paused.
“Scott was working on a cure for what?”
“I have toxi-parasitic strain C.”
“You’ve had it this whole time?” Nathan couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
Trevor nodded.
“But the sickness and the episodes…”
“With the exception of a few close calls, I’ve been able to hide it.” Then Trev added, “Epherus knew. Glade figured it out too.”
“I don’t know what to do here.” He really didn’t. Though looking back on the past with this new knowledge filled in a lot of answers; the odd moods and the drinking. What he understood of toxi-parasitic strains is there were only two, A and B. There was no C.
“Just let me see this through.” Trevor said in the silence they found themselves in.
Nathan looked him over. He should sit him out and get him medical attention. But that was the old him thinking. If Trevor wanted to see this through to the end, he would let him.
“All right,” Nathan agreed. He patted his shoulder. “All right.”
“I’m going to get us some lunch,” Trevor said weakly and left his uncle to his own thoughts.
“That’s…that’s fine.” Nathan watched him go. The realization of what he’d witnessed slowly dawned on him. His last remaining family member was dying. He didn’t even get a chance to tell him this was his last flight. Now it didn’t matter. It most likely was his last. If the TPC was giving him fever symptoms, he had less than twenty-four hours to live.
Trevor finished up at the galley and polished off the sandwich he had made. He downed it with something caffeinated.
Now he knows, he thought to himself. When he was a kid, his father had taught him not to reveal it. Those with the parasite were outcasts to modern society, destined never to see their thirtieth birthday. Now at age twenty-nine, Trev realized they would have been right to cast him out—all the years of schooling and an apprenticeship to a job specialty, only to have him perish before his first day. It was wise for his father to teach him that so he could have a shot at a normal life. But they still weren’t were what this strain did.
But his dad had also told him he had been working on a cure, not a weapon—not the weapon, the one that had shattered their world.
What was Nya trying to tell him? Why did she haunt him? There was an answer right at the brim of it all—something embedded in his subconscious, attempting to break through.
He grabbed up his uncle’s lunch and made it back to the cockpit. He handed the food to Nathan and sat in his own seat. He could see his uncle lacked the verbal resources to cope with the new revelation, and this was welcome. Trev didn’t want to discuss it. There was nothing to talk about anyway. It was the way it was.
Nathan kept his feelings inside. It was clear the kid didn’t want to talk about it, which was convenient since he didn’t even know where to begin. He had never even suspected he had the disease, but it made sense…Why hadn’t Scott ever mentioned it? He would have to deal with this new information later.
After a little while, the force drive popped off, and they burst into the Charkus-3 System. The quantum engines hummed as the Wrath floated toward the yellow planet they were aimed at.
Trevor flicked the NAV off and looked over his controls. “Loffgannon is in sight.” The landing guide showed a safe trajectory toward a meeting point. “Enter the atmosphere at point A-two-two-seven-decimal-three.”
“Copy.” Nathan double-checked the landing data and disengaged the autothrottle. He did a course correction and rechecked his numbers. For a second, he felt an odd sensation, like he was missing something. But it passed.
A red-eyed Kaida found her seat and gave Nathan a quick peck. She wanted to know how the talk had gone, but she knew during landing wasn’t the best time. Boost stood behind them looking out over the desert world they were approaching.
Nathan brought the ship down into an approach. The world l
ooked like it was experiencing massive sandstorms. The topographic analyzers had warned them it was only through the top layer. The ship bumped and shook through the dust clouds. Nathan did the best he could to hold her steady through the worst of it, and they finally came out. The ground didn’t look as promising. It was all sand dunes and hills. They burned across the empty terrain.
“This doesn’t look right. What’s the landing point again?” Nathan barked, his eyes on his own controls. He stole a glance and saw Trevor was out cold and drenched in sweat. Nathan did his best to control their fall. Without the proper landing data, the Wrath struck the ground hard. The right landing gear indicator showed it was out of place, most likely broken off.
Sand and dust rained down and caked the ship. Hoof clumps sounded as Glade reached the cockpit. “Is everything all right?” He looked at them each in turn. His eyes, like Nathan’s and Kaida’s, stayed on Trevor.
He was breathing shallowly and mumbling deliriously.
Realizing they weren’t going to explain, Kaida asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
Nathan and Glade exchanged a glance, like they weren’t sure who should vocalize the truth. Then Nathan shook his head and answered, “He’s in the final stage of toxi-paratosis. He’s slipping away from us.”
Boost and the other three looked in on him as the color drained from Trevor’s skin. He was already slipping deeper and deeper.
Chapter 18
