Chapter 5:
The battle was heated. Jessica dispatched a Fed officer and then another. She ran down a hallway, looking for something but she didn’t know what; laser fire crumpled the wall she had been standing near a moment before. She ducked and then hit the deck, rolling to one side. She bounced back to her feet, her weapon drawn. Beams of killing light shot from the tip, and she heard a long groan.
But beyond that came the sound of many feet running. Her head went back and up, and she moved, ducking low and trying to get something between her and the half dozen armed officers firing at her. The walls splintered and the floor buckled. The idiots were destroying the ship!
Well of course they are, her fevered mind whispered to her. They know they are going to die if they do not get to the pods, which are just past me. So let them get by, and they will stop firing. She dove behind a low wall and then rolled again, sliding into an open doorway to find herself in a small tech room with lit up panels and controls.
What the hell?
She frowned, trying to understand what she was seeing.
Ships were new to her. She had never been on one until she had been captured and sent off on the slaver ship, and she had spent much of that trip in a cryo chamber. Talon had taught her much in the time since he and his siblings had rescued her and the others from that ship, but still, tech for ships was not her thing at all.
The officers had given up trying to kill her and had pinned all their hopes on the pods and escaping to the larger ships ahead. She waited, her back against a wall and her ears straining to hear any sound. When none came, she slid out of the door and back down the hallway toward the sounds of a pitched battle.
She burst into a room to see several wreckers firing at officers who had taken cover and had the advantage. She had managed to come in behind the Fed officers, however, and her laser swept their ranks, thinning them enough that the others could lay down cover while she went back out the door to prevent herself from being mowed down by return fire.
Talon slid down the hallway on his back, laser firing. Her head turned to the right, and she watched as a Fed officer who had been about to fire at her exposed back went down in a heap.
Talon grinned at her. His eyes were wild, and his teeth shone. “You’re welcome.”
“I came from in there. I went in and ambushed a few but they started firing, and I was unprotected.”
Talon said, “I don’t hear anything now.”
He darted his head around the corner and shouted, “Harlon!”
Harlon shouted back, “We’re all good boss! Found a massive credit cache! Must be at least a million credits in here! Grabbing it and heading for the hold!”
Jessica said, “Come on.”
She got to her feet. The deck was slick with blood, and she jogged along it, being careful to stay away from the walls. One crack could suddenly turn into a massive rift, and that rift could suck her out into space with no trouble at all, and she knew it.
They went slowly as they found the bridge. The crew was either dead or gone. The lights of the bridge blinked and flickered, casting it in stripes and splashes of alternating dark and light. The place felt creepy and strange, and Jessica blinked hard as she tried to focus her vision.
Her other senses took over. She could smell blood and weapon fire discharge on the air. There was the acrid reek of the control panels burning. The sound of the ship groaning as the wrecker crew broke it apart so that it would be unrecognizable as it drifted off into space.
She heard a muffled groan. Then the sound of a weapon leveling and preparing to fire. She moved, her arm coming out and pushing Talon along with her.
They landed in a heap on the floor, their limbs tangling and winding together. Her heart, already sped up by the excitement and the danger, increased yet again. Her mouth went dry. It was so very sexual, whether she wanted it to be or not.
She did want it to be sexual. She wanted him more than she could say and the insistent thrust and push of his muscular and very masculine body against hers just made her even more aware of that fact with each passing nanosecond.
They untangled and wound up on their bellies, side by side. Their weapons went to work, and their enemy fell. The sound of lasers whining and things shattering created a deafening din.
Talon’s hand yanked her up off the floor. His touch electrified her even as her body moved. She pelted along behind him, racing toward the end of the bridge.
Talon found the control panel and set it so that the ship would keel off course and fly directly into the star system, where grav-pull would help to dismantle what was left of it, a thing guaranteed to make sure that they left very little evidence behind as to who they were and how they had taken the ship.
Crewmembers under attack always had conflicting stories, Talon had told her early on, and sometimes those conflicting stories were really all the cover that they needed, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. They found an officer, wounded but alive, hiding below a table. Talon hauled him out.
Talon put his weapon to the officer’s forehead. “Why were you supplying the Gorlites?”
The man shook his head. His eyes were wide with fear. Talon said, “Listen, there are still escape pods. You are not seriously wounded. There is still time for you to escape but you are not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know.”
The man sagged. His eyes went from her face to Talon’s. Jessica watched the officer’s body language. He was huddled and bent, one hand cupping his stomach and bright blood showed on the shoulder of his tunic.
Her senses kicked into high gear. Her body moved, speeding through the distance between her and Talon. Her foot lashed out and met the officer’s hand just as he tried to draw the weapon he had been holding below his tunic. The weapon hit the deck with a clatter and chink, and a short burst of fire came from its muzzle, spiking into a control panel and creating fire.
Talon said, “Now you just pissed me off. I asked you once nicely; now we will have to do it the hard way.”
The officer shouted, “No! No, wait! I don’t know why; we just do. We always have! There’s a …there’s a standing order that we resupply them!”
Jessica’s mind went perfectly smooth and blank; the memories came up. Yori standing before her in their secret meeting room below ground. The dim lights flickering as he spoke in his slow and educated voice.
“The Gorlites are our enemies, but not all in the Federation see them as such.”
She gagged. The flood of memories came harder, threatening to break down the barriers in her mind. She could hear Talon talking to the officer, hear the officer talking in return, but she could not focus on them. Her eyes closed and a tide of things she had locked away came washing over her.
So many secrets. So many lethal and killing secrets.
The resistance on Old Earth. The Federation officer who had taken one look at her when she had been a child and declared she was perfect for the Capo ranks. The death all around her, much of it caused by her. Her need to make things better.
And the words written on a piece of paper she had swallowed after reading.
The Gorlites and the Federation, working together for centuries to disrupt planets and ships and trade routes, all so the Federation could gain power.
Her legs went weak. She felt the heat rolling off the officer’s body as he fled away from her.
Talon’s fingers locked down on her shoulders. His voice came into her ear. His breath washed across her cheek. “Jessica. Jessica!”
More weapons fire. She had to move. Had to go, and fast, but her feet were locked into place, unbending and unmoving. Sickness filled her, making her body sag toward the floor. Talon’s hands met her upper arm, and he moved, dragging her along with him.
Time sped and slowed down all at once. Her head rang with the sound of voices that she had not heard in years as the memories, all of them locked away in that mind-trapping method that Yori had taught her, burst free from their boxes and took her out of the present and into the past, hurtling her into a place where there was no safety and only the sure and dread certainty that this entire universe would soon collapse and die and that there was nothing she or anyone could do about it.
They ran into hell. Harlon shouted, “We got Gorlites, Talon! They’re trying to take our ship! We have to get back over there.”
Time coalesced and hardened. Jessica’s mind snapped back to the present. They ran for the tubes, gathering weapons to replace the spent ones they would not have time to reload. Talon and she were the first ones in the tubes, and she carefully checked her weapons in the small amount of time allotted to them by the journey to their ship, but her brain had gone smooth and blank again.
She was operating on pure instinct now, and as soon as the tube opened, she was out and firing at the Gorlites, a species that resembled a cross between a worm and a cockroach, and whose ability to fight and kill was legendary. If they got within reach, they could spit deadly venom into the faces of their victims. They could handle weapons, and they could stab an enemy to death with their appendages.
The scene was straight out of a nightmare. The only way to kill a Gorlite was to go for its head, and Jessica's aim was true. If they could burrow, they would and leave eggs that would become Gorlites, and those infant Gorlites could take over a ship just as well as their adult counterparts.
Talon’s back met hers. They stood in the middle of the room, their bodies pressed together as their weapons fired at the Gorlites ringing all around them. A burst of venom shot through the air and Jessica grabbed Talon’s hair and shoved his head down as she ducked. The venom sailed over their heads, and Jessica shot a blast from her laser, killing the spitting Gorlite. The acid leaked along the floor, and she screamed in fury as she killed another Gorlite.
Harlon and the others charged in, coming from the tubes in time to see Jessica and Talon trapped within a Gorlite ring.
The Gorlites died, and then they were off and running. The fight was all over the ship. The crew was used to fighting Gorlites, and Talon had long since devised traps for any creature that tried to take his ship. The traps were working, but the Gorlites were large in number. Their bodies littered the hallways, but so did a number of crew bodies. Jessica’s ire only increased as she saw a young Begenlie warrior that had joined them just a few months before lying dead on the floor close to his bride, whom he had obviously been trying to protect.
It was fight or die, so she fought. Talon and the others fought right beside her. The Gorlites were eventually beaten back, and the few who had not died retreated back to their own ship. The crew immediately began the cleanup process and looked for burrow holes and slime trails that would point to a Gorlite infestation.
Jessica kicked a dead body from her path. Her eyes were fastened onto Talon’s face as she walked toward where he stood, one booted foot on the dead carcass of a Gorlite. The anger in her heart was only matched by the rage written large upon his expression. They met in the middle of the battlefield, and for one moment fear brushed a wing across Jessica’s body, sending a slight shiver through her skin.
He looked as if he were caught in bloodlust that might very well mean her death. Her lips parted, and she breathed, “It is me. I am not your enemy.”
His lustrous eyes shone even brighter for one moment, and then his eyelids blinked downward then upward and she saw recognition and a slow receding of the anger.
She said, “Talon…”
Talon’s head drooped downward. One of his hands came up and stroked his hair. “I know, but I don’t want to know. The Federation is in alliance with those parasites. They have likely been unholy partners for centuries.”
It all came back to her at that moment. The secret that her brain had jealously guarded through the mind wiping and the probing of her brain that Jeval had engaged in. The one thing her mind had not shown her earlier and the secret that she had been trying to unlock because her mind had whispered to her that time was running short and she must remember.
A spasm of pain rippled through her. Her breath and heart both literally stopped for a moment, then resumed at a fast pace. Her hands balled into fists, and she had to struggle to speak because the words that she had to say were so terrible it felt like speaking them aloud would somehow bring them into life and being and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
She had to say them.
Now.
Because time was indeed running out, and not just for her, but also for the entire universe.
She said, “The Federation uses them as undeclared assassins. They do not pay them as they allow them to keep whatever ship they breach and they grant them safe passage and compensation for their filthy deeds.
“Soon their ships will descend upon Old Earth. The Federation intends to allow them that planet for their own. Only those who live above will be able to escape. Those who live below will be enslaved or killed.”
His face showed his horror at her words. “Why? Why would the Federation allow the Gorlites to take Old Earth? It is still the seat of Federation power.”
Jessica waited, knowing he would understand it very soon. Comprehension dawned on his face. His breath escaped his mouth in a long and audible exhale. “They intend to overthrow the older members of the Federation, don’t they?”
Jessica’s head moved up and down in an affirmative gesture. “Yes. As much as I hate the Federation, I will admit that those who intend to overthrow it frightened me much more than I can even say. They are even more ruthless than any the universe has ever known before. There shall not be a Federation any longer, only tyrants who own everything.”
He pointed out, “That sums up the entire Federation.”
Jessica said, “Yes, it does. However, even the Federation has limitations. As it stands now, most planets have rulers of some type in place that broker deals with the Federation. Those rulers and leaders are all that stands between the Federation becoming despotic. The ones who plot to overthrow the Federation tend to also create war and chaos by assassinating the universe’s leaders and rulers, particularly those who stand firmest against the Federation.”
Talon said, “Destroy all leadership and there is nobody to turn to but the Federation. Destroy those in the Federation who would stand against such total control, or who may be able to wield it, and what you have is a single being who could rule the entire universe.”
Jessica said, “Yes, exactly. He shall not have full control, of course. He is smart enough to make it appear as if he is delegating some power to those who follow him. But I would say it will not be long before they too find themselves at the end of an assassin’s weapon.”
His shoulders yanked inward, his hands gripped his weapon more tightly. His face closed like a fist. “I will not fight to save the existing Federation. I know that seems to be the only choice here. It is the demon you know versus the demon that you don’t.”
Jessica holstered her weapons. Her hands came up, her palms showing in a gesture of goodwill and peace. “I know how you feel. I have every reason to hate the Federation. I also have every reason to want to save those who are below on Old Earth.
“I can’t stand idly by while this happens. I know you, Talon. I know you seek the death of every Gorlite, and with good reason. I am telling you that you have been sadly mistaken for a great many years. You’ve underestimated their numbers. They have been widely believed to be verging on extinction. They are not.
“That is the rest of the secret that I know. They have built an entire armada from taken ships, and they have hidden themselves with cloaking devices so as not to attract attention. The Federation has kept them fed, and in fuel, and now they are going to descend on my home planet and kill all who stand in their way.”
He did not want to believe her. It showed in his eyes. He had waged war for centuries against that parasitic race that had murdered his parents and so many of his people and then enslaved him on that mining planet.
Jessica did not know all of his history. Talon did not talk about it. It was not a secret and many of the crew, especially Harlon, had been with Talon since Talon had been just a young child on his home planet of Revant. They occasionally said something, but never enough for her to really grasp the situation. She knew his planet had been destroyed by the Federation’s greed for a wormhole route and that after that his family’s ship had been taken over by Gorlites, which had then sold him and his three brothers—Renall, Marik, and Jeval—into slavery on a mining planet, and that those things had shaped him into the warrior that he was—and a being whose life was battle and blood.
He was marked by those experiences, and they were the reasons why he did everything that he did. She had to remember that because he was going to balk when she told him the rest of it.
She said, “Think about it. You told me yourself that you saw Federation ships on the surface of that mining planet that you were forced to work on. You have always said that the Gorlites must have found a way to take those Federation ships but that your first impression, when you saw them there, was that the Federation must be working with them. You thought that was too wild a supposition. It could not possibly be true, or so you thought. But it is. Open your eyes and see the truth!”
He turned away. Her eyes rested on his strong back. His shoulders tensed and his fingers reached for his weapons once more. His voice was gruff and hoarse. “I shall go with you to Old Earth to prevent it being taken, but I will not lift a finger to save a single Federation life.”
She wanted to argue with him that he was going to have to do just that if he wanted to prevent the universe from being taken hostage and held by power-mad beings that had no regard for life unless it would serve them.
She said nothing because that was not a decision she could talk them into and she knew it. His agreeing to go to her home planet was already a victory, and a hard-won victory at that. There would come a time when they would actually have to fight on the side of the Federation if they were to save the universe, and he was right: it was a hellish bargain and one that would ensure there were no winners, but much death on all sides.
He turned to face her. His lips canted upward in his usual arrogant smile. “I suppose I can hope to die in battle with those stinking worms long before the Federation is overthrown and thus escape having to make a decision that would go against everything I have ever sworn upon my heart.”
His race took their vows so seriously that death would be preferable to breaking one. Jessica said, “If you die in battle and I do not, I shall see to it that your body is returned to New Revant and your blood for a proper burial.”
He nodded. His shoulders slumped with weariness. “We had better go find the others. I do not know how many more survived, but I do know one thing: no matter how many warriors we have on the ship, it is not enough, not if what you say about the Gorlites having an entire armada is true. I wish I could find some reason not to believe you; I truly do.”
“Only you can’t.”
“You can fight against the truth, but it won’t change it.”
No, it wouldn’t. His lips thinned down to flat lines. “I need to get into clean clothes.”
“Talon…”
He held up a hand. He took two hard breaths. “I…”
She stared at him. Her blonde hair hung tangled and sweaty around her face. Her chest heaved up and down. The urge to kiss him was overwhelmingly strong, so strong that she actually took a step toward him!
Kissing him would be stupid. It would be, but she wanted to kiss him anyway.
He said, “I will discuss this with you again. But not now. I will fight the Gorlites because I know, as well as you do, what will happen if they have a whole planet at their disposal. They will mate like crazy, and they will eat their way through Old Earth, growing stronger and larger in numbers the whole time. Then, then they will do what they have always done when they have wrecked something to the point they cannot squeeze one more ounce of use from it.”
He turned and strode away.
Jessica took three long breaths. She had to go after him. He had to see that it was not just the Gorlites that he needed to go after but also the actual Federation traitors. That was the real enemy for them just then, and if they did not take them down…
“I have to make him see some sense,” she said and started after him.
He had to help her save the Federation.
It was not what she wanted to do either. She hated the Federation with every fiber of her being, and with good reason. She had seen first-hand how that alliance killed everything in its path and turned a blind eye to injustices committed by the ones high within its ranks.
The Federation cared only for wealth and power, and while some planets had rulers that were just and fair and a population that still had divides but somehow managed to lessen the gaps between its lowest citizen and its highest one, Old Earth was not one of those planets.
Old Earth had been killed by climate change and war. The carogen bombs set off by the long-gone countries and the climate change had caused the seas to swallow the old land masses, and now the ocean waters were so acidic that touching a fingertip into the water would cause instant death.
The cities of old were gone, destroyed by fire and flood and the effects of the carogen bombs. What had remained had two very different and distinct classes of people.
Those who could live above, and those who had to live below.
Those who lived above enjoyed the sun and the air brought in through the domes while those below were forever gasping for more oxygen, straining for a clean breath. The air they breathed was sufficient for life, but it felt flat and dank in the lung and mouth.
She shook that off as she walked behind Talon, doing her best to match his powerful stride. Now was not the time to hate the caste system on Old Earth.
Now was the time to try to save that planet, and she needed Talon’s help and the crew. She needed him.