Chapter 13:
They arrived at the Solaris system the next afternoon to find chaos and terror there.
People were running for their lives. Ships were lifting off the surface and fleeing the system, but the people on those ships had to know that there was nowhere to go. The Federation was closing in, and they had seen evidence of that as they had flown into the system.
Lornia stood on the ship’s bridge, staring down at the scorched surface of the planet as they docked. That war had already come was clear, and that the war being fought right then was one for survival. Those who had the means to flee were, and those without the means were killing those who did and stealing their ships.
Cowards.
The word came up in her mind and immediately she felt terrible for having thought it.
Faced with death, all races and species had the instinct to do whatever it would take to survive. She had seen members of her own race turn their backs on others in order to survive, and had she not fled herself, and willingly at that, when war had come to her system?
Yes, she had. She wanted to flee then too, but how could she when she was the weapon, and she had no choice or say in the matter?
Besides, she owed the Federation some payback. No, the ones she had been in contact with could never be paid back for what they had done and allowed to be done by their leader, but the ones who existed there in that space and time and universe were just as guilty of crimes equally horrific.
The ship landed. Drake said, “Stay close to me.”
She nodded but didn’t answer. She knew he was worried about her wellbeing. The last week that they had been on the ship had been spent making love and talking and for every good thing she discovered about him, she also uncovered one more thing that made her wonder where his ambitions ended and where his feelings for her began.
His hands lay on her back. She turned to face him, forcing a smile. His dark eyes drilled a gaze into hers. “I mean it, Lornia. It’s mass panic down there. You don’t look like anyone down there, and they may try to kill you for that and no other reason.”
She felt that sorrow coming back up inside her being. That was true, and she knew it. She also knew she could be deadlier than anyone who came at her. “I know.”
The bay doors opened. Drake took up a position in front of her. Lornia felt a smile come up as he did so. Blade said to Tara, his mate, “Stay behind me and remember to fire when needed.”
Tara said, “I have your back, Blade.”
Jessica and Talon needed no words. They had been fighting together for so long that they even moved as one person. Jenny and Marik also exited the ship, followed by Margie who was being protected by Jeval.
The streets were filled with rotting bodies. Lornia’s stomach churned as they passed them. Jenny cried softly as she bent to help one small human and then stood, shaking her head before moving onward. The sound of weapon fire rattled across the streets and from rooftops. The sound of ships flying away rang out and contrails blazed across the sky. It was overwhelming. Too many people. Too many buildings.
Too much death. Lornia shook as they kept walking, heading to a destination she had no idea of. The streets ran downhill, and she slipped on something. She looked down just as Drake caught her arm and held her upright. At her feet lay a body, one covered with the red welts of laser fire.
A mob raced toward them. They were intent on murder. Lornia shifted, her hands going to her weapons. She didn’t have to draw them because the mob moved past them, shouting some madness that made her ears ring.
Black smoke erupted from a building, and a man ran from it, clutching the remoters from a ship. A woman, her face bloody, fell into the street screaming that he was a thief and he had stolen the only way off the planet that her family had.
Lornia said, “We have to stop this!”
They did. There was no way this could be life. How could any being stand it!
Drake said, “We have to get to the communication building. From there we can broadcast to the people all across the planet. We have to get them to fight the Federation and stop fighting each other to try to escape.”
Lornia had to struggle to breathe as even more people raced by her. Their fear was so real and present that it tore at her soul. She knew why they were afraid, and she could understand, but that fear buffeted against her body and heart, made her legs go weak, and her skin rise up into gooseflesh.
The city was worse than she had thought from above. Buildings were burned out. The streets had buckled patches, and there were looters, people intent on having a good time while the whole world burned all around them, ramming heavy battering rams into windows in order to break them and take the goods displayed within.
Why?
Why would they care about things that they would die before they could use?
Lornia was confused by the looters, and even more confused by the people who simply stood there staring at the devastation around them, not moving or speaking or trying to even get out of the way.
Why were they not even trying to run or fight?
The world was ending, that was why, and they knew it. They had given up already. They had accepted death and all it would bring to them.
The building that Drake pulled her toward rose high in the sky. The peak of it was needle thin and she stared at the peak, her brow furrowing as she wondered just how they would get to it.
That answer was simple. The oldest of tech. A car that slid them to the top and into a room filled with blinking screens and commers that would broadcast whatever they said.
Drake pushed her into a corner and spoke. His body shielded her from the view of the people who had already been in the room and his eyes held no expression at all, something that frightened her more than anything else.
He said, “We have to tell them what you are. I have to. These people on this world are terrified and if this planet, which has been civilized for so long, can be thrown into such furor before the Federation even arrives, our cause is lost. We need them to fight. I need you to let them know we can.”
“You mean I can.” Her breath lifted her chest. She wanted to touch him. To reach out and hold him, to be held by him, but they had come to this, finally.
She was the weapon that would end this war. That would save this universe. And he was the one who would use her.
Could she still love and want him after that knowing that once he did, she would be sent back to Tralam?
She did not know.
She had not yet told him the rest of it though, and that alone told her that she still did not trust him.
She said, “I know. I will talk to them. Or better yet, I will show them.”
He swallowed hard. “You don’t have to do this. We can fight them back without you. All I need is for you to give them hope.”
His words gave her hope. Not hope that she would not have to do that thing that the weapon had been made for, the complete destruction of an enemy, but hope that they might have something.
That they might have had something.
She would be the weapon and the weapon belonged in Tralam. He had taken her from that place, yes, but that secret that she was keeping from him was the one thing that would make sure she was sent back to that prison, and she had no idea what she would find there when she arrived.
What she did know was that she had no idea if he would ever be able to find her again once she left his side, and if he did, if it would be too late for the thing that had started between them to thrive and have the chance it deserved.
The man seated at a comer panel said, “Whatever you are going to do, do it. They’re setting the street ablaze now, the fuckers. It’s like they want to kill us all before the Federation arrives in the hopes that they will somehow escape the larger pain.”
Lornia stepped forward. Their eyes locked. Drake looked away first. His voice was gruff. “Lornia, I will protect you.”
He could not protect her.
Nothing could protect her.
Lornia stepped to the commers. The people working the commers zoomed in on her face and form. She swallowed hard and then lifted her head.
She began to speak. “My name is Lornia. I’m an Eldren. What you call a Speaker. I have come from behind the door to help you defeat the scourge known as the Federation.”
Then she let the weapon take over.
Her skin retreated. Her eyes got larger and more luminous. The chambers of her heart came into view, skipping and whirling. She intoned, “I will kill those who you fear, but I must ask you to stop killing each other. If you wish my protection, then you must show me that you are worth saving. What I saw in your streets does not make me want to help you. All I see is cowardice and death. Is that worth saving?”
Drake drew close to the commers. Lornia watched as he did. The people out on the streets listening to her words had gone still. The looters had stopped breaking windows. Some dropped the things that they were carrying to the street and looked about themselves with confusion and clarity warring for dominance on their faces.
Lornia spoke again. “I know sacrifice. To do what must be done, I must sacrifice myself. For you. I do not know you. I do not trust you. I have no reason to do it other than the fact that I am a weapon built to do just that. My sacrifice will save you. But I will not do that, give my life for yours, if I feel that yours are not worth saving.”
She turned and walked out of the view of the commers.
Silence filled the room.
Then one of the commers spoke in a high and thin voice. “Oh my God. It’s them. The Federation, and they’re bombing the city!”
Lornia turned to see ships crowding the sky. The people in the streets began to try to flee, but it was too late. Bombs dropped everywhere, and people died.
Rage bloomed in her heart as she watched that happen.
The Federation.
From its start, it had been a thing forged to ensure that a very few would rule and be powerful, wealthy, and above all the laws that they themselves enacted.
Now that alliance, unholy as it was, had decided to show its might by killing innocents, people who may have had nothing at all to do with the rebellion in order to prove that they were still the rulers of this universe.
That anger steadied her.
Now was the time to be the weapon that would bring justice, no matter how much the sacrifice would cost her.
She had to do it because more than the Federation was at stake here.
There was the Orb to consider, and she was the weapon. The Federation did not yet hold the secret of it, and they may never, but if the race that did hold that secret should ever come to the Federation and make an alliance with them, they would enslave the Federation and use its might for their own agenda.
And that agenda would be domination of every universe ever known.
Protect the Orb.
That was the secret of the weapon that she had become, the secret she dared not share with Drake or anyone else.