“The Elysians are not children anymore,” Parker said. “You’re full grown, full power. You can defend yourself now. I can defend you!”
“From your kind. Not from the Panoptica,” Galen said, his eyes settling on Janiya.
“The other Panoptica are not invited to this party. They’ve rejected Janiya just as they’ve rejected you. If they show up, I will make them pay for what they’ve done to you,” Parker promised.
“Parker!”
Parker tensed at the sound of Cheoff’s voice, but then he turned smugly, keeping a hold of Galen’s hand to show that he was in control of the beast.
Cheoff stood aghast in the doorway, but then, the idiot he was, stepped closer. “Incredible,” he murmured. He said something else, using one of those archaic languages he was so fond of learning. Parker recognized the sound of “Hanyu” in the language. Galen lashed out, backhanding Cheoff, sending him flying into the hall.
“You cannot control me with those words!” Galen shouted.
Laughing, Parker patted Galen’s hand, then sauntered over to Cheoff, giving him a light nudge. With Cheoff in play, he didn’t know which side Lieutenant Carr would fall on.
“Did you have a nice jaunt in the city?” Parker taunted.
“I went to see your ex,” Cheoff replied, rising slowly. “She said you were hiding something in the basement, but I didn’t expect to find an Elysian half-breed. How are you controlling him?”
Parker’s jaw shifted side to side, and his hands balled into fists. He couldn’t believe how easily the thought of losing Diana enraged him. With Galen’s anxieties mingling in his mind, every emotion seemed amplified. “She’s not my ex. She’ll come back.”
“After what you did to her?” Cheoff asked, his hands out to the side, his eyes searching for escape.
“What you did. Your orders!” Parker shouted, stamping his foot.
“I ordered her reprimanded, not brutalized. I didn’t laugh at her injuries and tell her she deserved worse,” Cheoff provoked.
Parker shook his head in denial. “She threw a man in a grav-chamber and left him to die. Eye for an eye. She understands. She’ll recover, and when she does, she’ll come back.”
“I can heal her,” Galen volunteered.
“You see!” Parker said.
“If you’d loved her, she wouldn’t need healing,” Cheoff accused.
Parker grabbed Cheoff and punched. Cheoff reeled back, his head smacking against the wall. Parker cocked his fist again, but Cheoff punched first.
“You would torture and imprison and destroy the lives of hundreds of people, and yet you cry for her,” Cheoff said. Parker shrieked with rage, and he punched and punched, aiming for the face. Cheoff fought back, but Parker was stronger. One of the punches caught Cheoff’s arm, and Cheoff’s bone snapped. Parker punched again, connecting with Cheoff’s broken arm, and Cheoff fell to his knees.
“If you want her, show her. Send this creature back. Deivon, we can fix this,” Cheoff said, looking to Carr for help. Carr had his eyes on Galen, fearing he’d suffer the same fate as his partner.
“Fix what? There is nothing wrong with my world, except the sniveling fool who thinks he’s leading it!” Parker cried, kicking to emphasize his words. His first kick was to Cheoff’s gut, but the second was to his face. “His people survive without water hauls from Aquia, and you want to get rid of him. The only reason we have anything is because I’m holding this world together!”
“You’re killing your own people,” Cheoff pleaded.
“I do not need you. Galen is here. Diana will come back,” Parker seethed, planting a knee on Cheoff’s chest and pinning him to the floor. His hands closed around Cheoff’s neck. He would have won. Except Cheoff had a stunner.
Tray’s teeth chattered as he slid into the captain’s chair on the bridge. This was wrong. All wrong. He was just out of surgery, Chase was in need of surgery, and Morrigan needed an intervention. When he’d asked to leave the airlock, a gruff guard hollered at him and told him Terrana was in lockdown. Which Tray understood. The Governor was missing, and the Guard weren’t going to let his potential kidnappers flee in the midst of the crisis. Tray was just glad the ship wasn’t under siege.
“Are they strapped in?” Tray asked.
“They’re in the lounge,” Morrigan said, standing behind Tray’s chair, not ready to take a seat at the console. “I figured you’d give your silly takeoff speech if we actually got the airlock open.”
“I’m working on it,” Tray said, poking half-heartedly at the console. He’d hacked a lot of things, but never an airlock. There was too much danger inherent in messing with the system designed to keep the air in.
“I don’t know if Chase will survive micro-gravity,” Morrigan said.
“What’s wrong with Chase?” Tray asked.
“He got crushed, Tray,” she said harshly. “He has tiny bone fragments swimming between torn tendons. He didn’t have the benefit of a post-op knitter, and even though you did, you might get killed by a blood clot, too.”
Tray took a deep breath. One more reason not to listen to Danny. Although, the memory of the Joslin grav-chamber was a strong motivation to run.
“Maybe Lea could sit with him,” Tray suggested.
“You can ask her,” Morrigan said. “She and Chase have a minor language barrier.”
“That’s why we have Virps. And Nolwazi,” Tray said. He couldn’t ask the ship to fly itself. He could, but the ship had been known to screw up the simplest of maneuvers.
Hearing a ruckus behind him, Tray grabbed his pulse rifle and spun his chair around. He nearly fired, but Morrigan snatched the weapon from him.
“Why are you trying to hack the airlock?” Lea Santos demanded, storming in. Her Terranan accent was heavy, and her words seemed garbled, the way Amanda and Saskia got when they spoke rapid-fire Terranan to each other. She gripped the hand-rails and walked bent over, obviously struggling to walk at all. It was a frustration Tray knew well.
“How do you know we’re trying to hack the airlock?” Tray stalled.
“I monitor the Guard channels,” she said, letting go of the hand-grip long enough to show him her Virp. Tray figured his hack would trigger an alert. But it didn’t matter now.
“I got it. Move,” he told Morrigan. She gave a command to Nolwazi, and the ship slowly trundled toward the gate with Morrigan’s hands on the yoke.
“Where’s the kid? I need you both to sit down and strap in,” Tray said to Lea. Then he switched to Lanvarian. “Morrigan, is Chase strapped to the bed?”
“This is going to be bad for him,” Morrigan intoned.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Lea demanded, holding a hand out to block the little boy standing behind her. “I won’t let you abandon my husband.”
“We’re abandoning all of our crew right now,” Tray said. He caught her up on the danger, keeping his voice as steady as possible. Morrigan maneuvered the ship into the airlock chamber. One door closed, and the pressure outside began to shift.
“Does she need to sit?” Morrigan asked, glancing at Lea while she had a reprieve.
“There’s a fold-out seat on your right for the kid. You take the middle seat. I could use the help,” Tray said, bringing Lea onto the bridge. “Nolwazi, we’re trying to get into a low orbit around the moon, and I need help.”
“Please estimate the mass of the moon you wish to orbit,” Nolwazi replied.
“It’s Terrana. Can’t you tell you’re on Terrana?” Tray groaned. They were off to a bad start.
“Sensors indicate we are not in Terranan gravity,” Nolwazi replied.
“I did feel lighter walking up here,” Lea said. “That’s one of the effects you mentioned.”
“Nolwazi, use Terrana’s mass for takeoff and make corrections… how do you make corrections for collapsing dimensions?” Tray said, his hope fading.
“Sky was doing the math earlier,” Morrigan suggested.
“Wish she were here. Wi
sh any pilot were here,” Tray said, rubbing his head. The airlock door opened and Morrigan rolled them out onto the barren surface of the moon. Tray looked sideways at Lea. “You don’t happen to be an expert in artificial gravity, do you?”
“I do disease control and gate maintenance. I make sure people like the ones on your crew don’t get the rest of us sick,” she replied.
Tray pressed his lips together, feeling a sense of certain doom. “How’s that going?”
Lea hunched in the chair. Her body was weak and taking her to Aquia could be crippling. “You have no idea how many inexplicable breaches can be explained once you accept teleportation. And aliens.”
“Do you want to fly?” Tray asked. He wished for Hawk’s hybrid power.
“I’ll do it!” the little boy piped up.
Tray smiled at the eager kid, though inside he was dying at the thought of taking a luna-born into Aquian gravity. “After we get to orbit, it’ll be your turn,” he promised. Then he switched languages to talk to Morrigan. “Is there any way Chase can move?”
“Can’t move him, but maybe a vid feed. I don’t know if he’s coherent enough to help.”
“Lea and I will handle the bridge. I need you in the engine room channeling Chase,” Tray said. “If you can really do the supernatural channeling, try Danny.”
Morrigan wasn’t happy to leave, but she surrendered the controls without question. Tray felt butterflies in his stomach as he shifted control to his side. Then his nose started to bleed. It wasn’t nervousness; gravity was changing. They had to go.
Saskia panted for breath, stunned by the state of Rhodes’ corpse. Her blast had come too late. Amanda had killed Rhodes. When it happened, the ground shook. Benedict stumbled and fell against the electrified wall and Saskia hurried to turn off the wall before it killed him. Coro lay on the floor, barely breathing, crumpled next to Rhodes’ body. Amanda grabbed Rhodes’ stunner and ran into the hall.
“Amanda!” she called. She released Benedict from his shackles and pointed him to Coro. “Help him if you can.”
Her head spun, and she worried Rhodes had released a noxious gas into the interrogation room. Her barely functioning feet stopped dead when she entered the hall. Parker’s body was collapsed over Cheoff’s, and a giant, alien creature knelt over them.
“Oh, Zive,” Saskia murmured, feeing an urgent need for religion. She’d seen icons of the Aquian pantheon and she’d seen pictures of Elysians. Now, she knew them both to be understated, not exaggerated. The Elysian’s skin was deep brown with velvet-smooth fur. It had human eyes, but eagle’s talons
“Galen?” Amanda murmured, her eyes watering.
“He’s here. I see him, too,” Saskia confirmed, gripping Amanda’s elbow. The feel of gravity variations pushing and pulling her bones brought Sky’s warning into sharp focus, and Saskia’s instinct was to run. She raised her stunner to fire at the creature, but Amanda pushed the weapon down.
Galen stood tall, taking up the entire hallway. His arms opened and Amanda ran into his embrace, squealing gleefully as he lifted her and spun her around. For a moment, Galen looked human.
Saskia looked around for help and saw Sky lying on the floor, a glazed look in her eyes.
“Sky?” Saskia whispered, hooking her arms under Sky’s shoulders. Would it help to drag her into the room with Benedict? Between Sky and Coro, there were too many bodies for Saskia to haul out, and she hadn’t even found Hawk and Janiya.
“That’s not what they look like,” Sky whispered. “That’s not what’s inside of me.”
“It’s half of one,” Saskia said. “Elysians are half-human. That’s why it looks human when it holds Amanda. My brain can’t process it. Sometimes I see wings; sometimes I don’t.”
“Don’t let it take Amanda. After what it did to her,” Sky said. Saskia looked down at her stunner, wondering if the creature would be affected by the weapon. He had starved Amanda to the brink of death, but she looked like she loved him.
“What took you so long?” Amanda asked, wiping her tears against Galen’s chest. Sliding down his body, her toes touched the ground, but she held on. “Take me to Jo. I want to remember.”
He answered her in Moonspeak, and her body began shaking, like she was fighting off a fit. Then Galen’s wings unfurled, wrapping around her body. One of them looked injured; he could be injured!
“No, don’t take her!” Saskia cried, firing a warning shot at the ceiling and charging toward them. Her weapon disappeared from her hand, and she drew another from her boot, but she stopped her charge.
“I know I cannot,” Galen said, the translation of his Moonspeak words driving through Saskia’s skull like a knife.
“My parents. My childhood. My Jo. Please, I have to remember,” Amanda begged.
“If he could heal you, he would not have sent you back nearly dead,” Saskia said, looking for a chance to separate the pair.
“She dies so easily,” Galen said sadly. “Humans die so easily. Amanda, your memory will never be restored. All you know of yourself is what I learned of you before you died the first time.”
“The first time? How many times did she die?” Sky asked, a look of horror on her face. “How many times will I die?”
Galen looked at her, then seemed to look through her. He said something in Moonspeak that made Sky’s eyes roll back in her head. Saskia felt the gravity ripple, pushing her away from Sky.
“Why didn’t you let her stay dead?” Sky asked.
“Because she shouldn’t have died,” Galen said, combing his sharp talons through Amanda’s tangled hair, seeming to smooth it with his will. “Her memory has been entwined with mine since I restored her body to send her to the surface.”
Saskia’s tongue went dry at the implication of his words. Galen was a healer, and Amanda had become one after her mind was entwined with his. She could tap into spirit things, even though she wasn’t a hybrid. However diluted, she had half-breed powers.
“Are you killing humans, Galen?” Saskia asked.
“No. But when they die, I don’t bring them back anymore,” he confessed. “I don’t know why my brother brought me here.”
“Parker,” Saskia intoned.
“That’s right,” Parker growled, rising from the floor, brushing the dust from the whole burned through his suit. The skin beneath had been completely healed. “Galen, let go of her. You were meant to extinguish her, not befriend her.”
“I am not you, brother. I can’t kill for you,” Galen said, but he obediently released Amanda. Saskia grabbed Amanda, pulling her out of Parker’s reach.
“I told you he was worthless, Parker,” Diana Solvere crooned. She limped from the elevator, clutching her ribcage. The sadistic leer between the two was charged with hatred and sexual tension. Saskia hustled Amanda away from the pair.
“You used to be soft and worthless, and look at you now,” Parker said, temporarily distracted by her arrival. “Look how powerful I have helped you become. Cheoff said you wouldn’t come back to me.”
He cackled and kissed her, squeezing her injured ribs when she tried to pull away.
“It’s him or me, Parker,” she warned, choking out the words through the pain.
“I’ll have you both. I promise,” he snarled, squeezing her until she cried out.
“Parker, stop,” Cheoff panted. “You love her. Don’t hurt her.”
“Shut up!” Parker shouted, firing his stunner, killing Cheoff.
Saskia gasped when the Governor collapsed. He’d been in power so long, she didn’t remember a world without him. She’d sworn to protect him. She’d taken a bullet for him. She’d lost her ability to have children because of him. And though it wasn’t her job to protect him anymore, seeing him dead felt like a knife to the gut. For all her sacrifice, she’d failed him.
Solvere charged Parker, plowing a knife into his back. Before Parker’s body hit the ground, both he and Galen vanished. Amanda cried at the loss, but Saskia clamped a hand over her mouth, not w
anting to draw Solvere’s attention.
“That’s right, Galen!” Solvere hollered. “Keep him!”
33
With Galen’s disappearance, the Confluence went cold in Janiya’s hand and the stone felt lighter. The ground shook again, but the tidal forces that had threatened to pull her body apart vanished, and the gravity around her stabilized. Her skin warmed, and she felt control over her limbs again. A part of her wished Parker’s plan had worked long enough for her to reach the Panoptica. She wanted to find her people.
She noticed the spots in her vision returning. Windows were opening. She could teleport out of her cage, but she couldn’t tell if any of those spaces were safe. Hawk retracted his hand from hers and rolled onto his back. The tension in his arms and face told her that he didn’t feel the world righting itself the way she did. His trembling fingers curled, and he looked in horror at the phantoms of the spirit realm.
“Hawk? What’s wrong?” The words came out in Moonspeak, and she gagged when she tried to say them in Lanvarian.
“I see something strange,” he said. “I don’t understand.”
The room was still charged with spirit energy, and though she could read his thoughts, she couldn’t understand what he saw. Janiya didn’t know how to help, but when she got close, she felt sick and the escape paths disappeared.
“Lieutenant Carr, what the hell is going on in here?” a tall, brown-skinned man demanded. He wasn’t in uniform, but Carr reacted to him like he was in charge.
“They killed him twice. The Governor killed him. Solvere killed him. But he’s not dead. Parker’s not dead,” Carr said, his voice resonating with horror. His hand shook over his weapon and he stared at Janiya and Hawk as if they were to blame.
“He does seem to be gone for now,” Santos said, putting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, taking a fatherly tone. “How many people are down here? Do you know?”
“Four prisoners. Rhodes, Parker. No one else is supposed to be down here,” Carr replied.
“Hawk!” a tall woman called, rushing past the guards.
The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6) Page 24
