Chapter 18: An Important Lesson

“You have got to be the most breath-taking creature in this entire system,” David told Kristol, pouring her a glass of Timpole champagne smack in the middle Tarann Bay Restaurante, the most luxurious bistro in all of Param Eon.

Across from him, Kristol sat draped in an exquisite party dress, her elegant brown hair falling to her shoulders in thick, wide curls. A smile spread across her clear, smooth face as she accepted the drink. “I don’t know about that,” she said.

“Well, out of all the Handmen cadets, you are the finest, the most beautiful and there isn’t anyone else I want responsible for protecting my ass, than you.”

Kristol blushed and drank the champagne. David was quickly becoming a rising star within the banking guilds, a veritable wizard at off-system financing. From a long line of bankers, Kristol knew that money would never be a problem for them. Since they met, passed out in the same alley after a crazy party involving way too much imbobuoe liquor, she had always thought of the two of them as an ‘us’ or a ‘we.' Even though he hadn’t declared an engagement to her, she never worried and quietly made her way through the Handman academy, knowing full well he would eventually make the declaration. After that, they’d live in high society and she could do what she always wanted, become a Handman, at least until the children came along.

As she sipped her champagne, the thoughts of children made her warm inside and she smiled even more. At the restaurant all around them hundreds of upper crust socialites tinkled silverware, cut meat and slurped wines and liquors from around the galaxy. There almost seemed to be too many people for the time of night.

Then, on closer inspection, she noticed some of the people. Her friends Khloe, Samel, Ftekka and Patar from the academy. Her Uncle Bovie and Aunt Eller. Cousins. More aunts and uncles. Her grandmother, Eelise. And finally her parents, Toli and Krisime, perched at a table in the back. As she looked and noticed them, a stray feeling wriggled out of her brain, swam for her heart, making her tingly and began to well up in tears. Suddenly the entire restaurant grew silent and David stood up.

With hundreds standing around her, she sat and listened. “Krissy,” David said. “In front of all these witnesses, I am declaring my love for you and asking for your hand in engagement.” Her mind raced and swam with thoughts of the future, but her emotions welled up too much and she could no longer hem them in.

“Yes!” she said, crying and turning to see the whole place up and clapping.

The lights bounced off the ceiling of crystal and the tall windows, casting sparkles over everyone. Somewhere a band struck up an engagement theme. Kristol wept as everyone around her cheered and congratulated her. She couldn’t help but feel happy and think about a bright future with David.

But something twitched inside her brain – a sound that no one probably heard above the clapping and cheering, but she did, a faint tinkle of broken crystal and glass. Falling from above, tiny crystal shards sprinkled down on David’s hair. Then with a thunderous crash, a large thing – an Arman brute, by the likes of it – rose from the demolished table where her friends had just been crushed. Her senses hadn’t even taken in the shock of them lying shattered and bloody on the floor, they seamlessly went on instinct as she reached under her dress and quickly removed her hidden reignfire pistol.

As the creature approached, David turned around and said, “What do you think you are doing? Leave this establishment!”

At that moment they watched the brute suck in air and hold it, pushing out added muscle, upon muscle in his body. In four quick seconds he had tripled in size. David tried protecting her with his arm, but the brute grabbed him as Kristol began shooting, lighting up the brute with violet plasma blasts.

“Hallastaare sends a message,” The brute held David up in the air by his arms, then viciously tore him in half and tossed him aside. “No one refuses his offer.”

Again, Kristol saw her David torn in shambles on the floor, but emotions left her, her training took over now. She launched shot after shot at the brute, causing no damage.

“Pitiful technology,” the brute said. “You can't harm me.”

Kristol looked up to the high ceiling where a massive chandelier the size of a shuttle hung with dagger-like plates of glass. The brute made his way through the restaurant tossing people left and right, smashing tables of guests, decimating the entire place. When he stopped underneath the chandelier to grab a waiter, she took aim and shot out the support cable in the ceiling, sending a meteorite of glass and metal crashing on the brute’s head. Standing over the rubble, Kristol looked around at the carnage, her parents were missing, her friends were dead and David. Poor, David lied in pieces by their table.

Sadness wriggled into her then, her eyes tingled and she began to cry, baleful sweeping sobs that only stopped, when the brute reached out of the rubble and grabbed her by the neck.

That was the last thing she remembered about the incident. After, Hemmel Fjord, a Handman captain, told her they found her hanging from the ceiling of the Fenta sewer tunnels deep below Param Eon in thick chains. They were afraid she was dead, but she had been unharmed and they couldn't fathom, after what had just occurred, why she wasn’t killed. For the brute, it would have just taken a quick flick of his hand. But there they found her hanging by the chains, not a bruise across her entire body.

* * *

In her quarters aboard the G.S.A.S Scythe, Kristol stepped out from her cillin shower and stood wrapped in a large towel before a full body mirror mounted on the wall. She never understood her own attraction to seeing her scarred body. Standing there with the towel open, she looked herself up and down. Sometimes she no longer felt human. What she saw was from a different planet, a system of beings living on an incredibly hot planet, too close to its sun. But there, everyone had the scars. It was deemed normal. Perhaps that explained her odd fascination. Or perhaps, she needed to see this to understand the breadth of pain and suffering. By knowing that, she knew the borders her prey crossed, the borders she has to come so close to in order to have any chance bringing justice to people.

She wrapped back up and looked at the burn scars growing up her neck, wrapping around her lower jaw, her bottom lip pulled tight against artificial teeth. Lifting a smooth, nailless finger to her mouth, she touched the grafted lip: dry, taut, too smooth to be real. Then she gently brushed her fingertip across her full upper lip: unburned, plumped, full, with a smattering of the finest, imperceptible hair.

She lowered her hand, and tried to pucker her lips together for some fantastical kiss she knew would never come again in her lifetime. The top lip did its job, shriveled into a plump caterpillar, but the bottom lip didn’t move at all. At that moment a brief, wriggling pang sprung from her brain, attempting to get to her heart. She felt a long dead tingle at the corners of her eyes. It had been so long since she had felt it last, but she knew from where it came. Sadness.

Her quarter alarm went off, a fuzzy bell announcing a visitor. Wincing, she pushed back the sadness, back to a great pit in her mind and pushed it over the edge. Taking a deep breath, Kristol quickly wrapped the body towel around her again and lashed it shut with the tie.

At the door, she pressed her thumb against the lock and the door slid open to reveal Professor Deyston.

Having been a scholar all his life and a bit allergic to fraternization with females or any type of friend at all, he saw her in her towel and immediately looked away. “I can come back a bit later,” he said, more than a little embarrassed.

“No,” Kristol said. “It’s fine. We’re on a tight time table anyway. Were you able to complete it?”

For a briefest of moments, Deyston fixated on Kristol’s bare feet, the skin whorled and stretched, the absence of many of the toes, five to be exact, two on the left, three on the right. He followed the feet up to her calves, where her skin looked painted on with wide brushes, the bristly hairs clogged with skin paint and leaving lines and clumps. Sure he had been around her for some time now and had gotten used to seeing her neck and lower jaw, but she never talked to him about it. But after this, he had seen the top and bottom of her and using his imagination, painted the rest of the burns on her body. The image must have been too much for his constitution, because he shuddered briefly.

A shudder, Kristol had easily seen. The same shudder she had seen countless people succumb to when they saw her. “The report?” she asked coldly. A laugh caught her watching Deyston shake his head and come out of his fog.

He brought out a small datapad and and cleared his throat. “Okay, this is what I could find so far,” he said. “You must understand, my master─”

“Just give me the high level summary, Professor.”

“Okay,” he paused to take another breath. “We know through our own investigation on Draedus that the maopreta, or the ‘black hand’ as it is called, or the right-handed gauntlet piece to the Gardaan is possibly in the hands of Hallastaare, or at least about to be. Which is why we are heading to Tallon as we speak, correct?”

Kristol nodded to the affirmative.

“The laancaluca, or the ‘spear of light,’ the other gauntlet is also presumed to be in the hands of Hallastaare, per the oral recantations we discussed prior. The invencivvel, or the ‘shield of the gods’ is the breastplate and there are no known records that have been found that know of its existence. The lagartido, or the left boot, what early records call the ‘time wink,’ again, has no research behind it that reveals it’s possible whereabouts. The same can be said about the the jatigrotanno, or the ‘heaven strider,’ the right boot and probably the most powerful piece, the helm, or what was once called the fadacamente, or the ‘thought cutter.’ I’m afraid, that’s all I know. Again, pulled from the research of my master. Most of this information comes from myths, not credible sources.”

Kristol sat down on a hard cushioned chair, deep in thought. “Why is the helm considered the most powerful piece?” she asked.

Deyston scrolled down his datapad, then looked at her and said, “Um, the pieced together tales of the myth suggest that the helm commands the power mental fortitude, capable of mind control on a massive level.”

“Like a whole planet?” she asked.

Deyston shook his head and said, “I don’t know. Probably? I mean, if this ‘myth’ is actually true, if these artifacts were handed down by a divine creator, a god, then who knows what each piece of this armor is capable of.”

A smile glinted across Kristol’s face. “What do the other pieces do?”

Letting out a loud and noticeable sigh, Deyston scrolled through his datapad again and said, “Most of this was pieced together from crazed shaman tales and stories. The gauntlets possess control over the ‘light’ and the ‘darkness,’ whatever that symbolizes. The boots possess controls over gravity or flight of some kind perhaps and the other one seems simple, either time or speed. And the breastplate, possible immunities to harm.”

“Kind of like invincibility?”

Deyston nodded, “Sure. That could work.” He paused a bit and then continued. “The key here is that it seems like each piece commands a portion of a great god-like power, should all the pieces be brought together on any one person. As the myth goes, the last Gardaan, destroyed himself and the armor after his own harsh misuse of the power.”

“How’d he do that?”

“I’d imagine if you possessed the power of a god, you’d be able to go out in a pretty big bang.”

Amidst Deyston’s ramblings, Kristol had to admit that she saw what worried Withryn. But at the same time, she saw a greater worry and it started with herself.

As Deyston described the power behind each piece, she could feel herself getting excited, her blood pressure went up and she imagined herself wearing that helm, controlling an entire planet, an entire system perhaps. Somewhere within her a pool of animality had risen, eager to claim that helm and put it to use. Not only did the pieces weild great power, but their mere ideas seemed to wield a greater power of people.

She reminded herself to take a deep breath and not think about the helm and its control. Then she thought about her mission. Why had he sent her out here? She had thought to stop a great travesty – to keep the armor from falling into the wrong hands. But as she saw the mission in a new light, she saw herself the same as Hallastaare’s enforcer. They were both on the same mission, just for different sides.

Her thoughts swirled around Withryn’s abilities to communicate with people, see their needs, their cues and speak to them directly. That night in her apartment, when he asked her to do this – the pain in his eyes, the anguish, the fear of being on the wrong end of probably the greatest quest in the history of the galaxy, if it were true. Was that all a ruse? Was that him, using his deep relationship with her, to enter into this race? It chilled her to think he could have manipulated her so easily.

“Professor,” Kristol said. “Excuse me, but I must get dressed and onto the flight deck. We’ll be arriving at Tallon shortly.”

Suddenly, the COM stirred to life on the table by the wall. The holographic visage of Commander Gait Fensuithe appeared and said, “Captain Bantashe. Sorry to disrupt your report. I wanted to update you on a very serious incident that has occurred in the Cilbuper system. We got an anonymous tip within seconds of the occurrence of a man-made micro black hole within the atmosphere of the sixth planet. We have begun planetary evacuation protocols for the area, as well as the planet as the black hole grows and eventually consumes the planet.”

Kristol looked shocked and covered her mouth. “There has never been a successful test of any kind of technology that can induce and sustain a micro black hole,” she said. “How is this possible?”

Deyston stepped to her and pulled up the datapad, showing a rudimentary drawing of a glove that looked to be etched in ash by someone’s finger. “The maopreta,” he whispered. “The Black Hand.”

“I just wanted you to know, since you were nearby,” the Commander said. “We won’t need your help, but be on the look out for anything suspicious. The ship sending the transmission isn’t tracable through the COM, for whatever reason. So keep your eye open for a 'blank spot,' as they were probably the cause of this. Take care and good luck on your mission.”

The COM faded out and Kristol turned to Deyston and said, “A test?” “Perhaps,” Deyston said. “But if that was Halastaare, why would they have reported what happened?”

“To send up a sign perhaps? But that’s not Hallastaare’s style. He prefers to lurk, quickly strike and let the stories carry his message. I think whoever put on that gauntlet and tested it, didn’t intend for this to happen.”

“Maybe the piece fell into different hands?” Deyston said.

“Then,” Kristol said. “It will be interesting to see the activity report on Tallon as we approach.”

Dressed in her captain’s flight suit – a short, dark-gray jacket adorned with the Handman symbol worn over a tight-fitting black undersuit with dark-gray pants – Kristol pulled on her dark-gray gloves as she walked down the long corridor to the cabin. As much as the forced air from the ceiling and side vents helped create better artificial gravity within the ship, they too often gave her the shivers.

She relished these moments, though, the calm before the storm of directing an entire cabin of flight controllers, analysts and pilots, taking the chaos and pulling useful information out of it. She strode onto the flight deck in the cabin and said, “I want a scout report, what are we looking at?” She dusted past Professor Deyston like he didn’t exist.

In the analyst pits below, a nameless analyst worked furiously on an assessment of the Tallon system. Across the wide viewport a map of the system lit up, showing a colorful array of ship positions within the system.

“Well, everything is showing according to our forecasts,” the analyst said. “Mottled starship presence on the perimeter with a massive concentration at the interior.” A portion of the interior fleet map expanded and expanded again, showing a detached cluster within the overall interior fleet. “However, our scans indicate an unusual formation here in the interior.”

“As a percentage of their overall forces, that’s still an armada,” Kristol said. “They’re in a standard defense pattern, but that detached unit is an anomaly. There’s something going on. He’s sending a lot of resources to take care of something somewhere. I want pre-flight to try and get a read on where they’re going and begin replicating that flight plan for us.”

Standing nearby, Deyston asked, “You think our theory is right. He lost the piece, now he plans to reclaim it.”

“Precisely,” Kristol said and smiled out of the corner of her mouth, confident in the fact that she was getting closer, that even Hallastaare in all his crooked, deviant, deadly criminal power and resources wasn’t able to outsmart her.

Chapter 17: A Lingering Fear

Walking back through the Cilbuper sewer tunnels, Vaga felt like she was lying to Palo. More than likely the field triage skills she quickly performed on Morigin back at the ship came from her conduit programming, but what she didn’t tell him, is that it frightened her. The black-outs and dreams didn’t bother her. She felt that occurring in the biological part of her brain trying to recover.

But the other oddities, in the escape pod, on Draedus when Morigin handed her a weapon and then again inserting the IV – all those she did not feel in control. And as easily as she recovered from those brief spells, she thought long and hard about whether or not the conduit programming was regaining control, or if these instances were but symptoms of the reboot. Either way, she felt incomplete as if at any moment she could possibly fall under the conduit programming again, or it could be disappearing forever, leaving her mostly human.

As Palo walked in front of her, sloshing in the mess of the largest city on the planet, she wondered about her place in all of this. She got herself onto this ship, now everything that had happened seemed to be keeping her here. Her eyes caught the smoothness of Palo’s cheek in a brief flicker of light, his tousled brown hair and more now, the conviction of some of his words. Talking with Odiacz, he tried so hard to make all this sound like a fleeting dream his father had, but everything they had been through spoke against that. Someone out there wanted something really badly and they had resorted to killing people to get it. Or at least trying to kill people. That put this whole situation in the feasible column for her. A part of her wanted Palo to quit fighting it and accept that this is real, that everything his father had worked for and everything Palo resented him for was actually true and in danger of killing both of them.

Vaga thought about Morigin in medical pod back on the ship, Morigin’s chest heaving slowly within it and Jade whispering secret wishes to him. Palo promised to convince him not to rip Telo’s memories out of her mind, a process that would undoubtedly leave her broken and insane. Then she remembered Odiacz telling Palo about the [pull from previous chapter], her tentacles tight-fisted around the waterpac. Vaga had admired her tentacles. She felt a certain kinship with this creature, even though her own tentacles were nanofibers extending from her fingertips, while Odiacz had six sucker covered tentacles breaking off from her forearms. It wasn’t a direct comparison, but Vaga imagined her fibers wrapped around a terminal coil, drinking the data like Odiacz did water.

Vaga followed behind Palo and heard him muttering under his breath. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m having REAL reservations about myself,” Palo said, trudging through the swamp and muck of the tunnels. “Every decision, every feeling I have ever had, I doubt now. I want to so badly blame my father for this, but I can’t. Not to mention that I remember absolutely nothing that my father ever told me about any of this! I’m of no use to anyone. Morigin should have left me with that huntsman. I’d be better off with a plasma blast to the back of the head.” Vaga felt uncomfortable with Palo’s self-immolation, but at the same time she had no experience in these matters. What do you do with someone spiraling out of control like this? She reached into the newly open portions of her mind, stretching back to when she was a child, before becoming a conduit, back when she was feeling bad. What did her mother do? It hurt to press that deep on purpose, but she uncovered a memory of running with other children in their colony. She had stepped on a rock and fallen down. Tears. Then her mother swept her up and gave her big hug and a kiss. She remembered the pain dulling, the tears subsiding.

Catching up to Palo in the sewers, she leaned over and hugged him, then planted a kiss on his cheek. But Palo had turned too quickly in response to the hug and her lips pressed against his by mistake.

Before she could step away, she felt his arms around her, pulling her close, his lips roving about hers, kissing her back. Her first instinct – to break contact – fell limp in her mind as it processed all that was happening to her. Her face felt hot and her legs wobbly. Not to mention the light-headedness filling her head.

After a moment, Palo let go of her and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I thought…”

Vaga crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t all that bad. Though, I meant to kiss your cheek.”

“I figured that about half way through.”

Vaga reached out and grabbed his hand and said, “You can’t beat yourself up over this. When Morigin wakes up, he’ll know what to do. He’ll know just the place your father hid that magic glove.”

Palo turned back to her suddenly, then leaned down and snuck another kiss from her. “Thank you!” he said and started running through the tunnels.

Into the Jade Tendril they ran, the whole time Vaga screamed at Palo, “What did I do?”

Skittering into the cabin, they both stopped dead at the sight of Morigin stooped over one of the cabin chairs, the two plasma blast points still showing through his clothes and burnt to his skin.

“He’s weak,” Jade said. “So don’t get him too riled up.”

Morigin waved his hand at them and said, “I’m not weak. I’m just tired…really, really tired. Which one of you saved me?”

Palo quickly looked at Vaga and then turned to Morigin and said, “Vaga. I couldn’t lift you.”

“Figures,” Morigin said. “You always were a bit of a sissynanny.”

Vaga’s head swam with golden thoughts of Palo. He had kept his promise!

Morigin slowly backed himself into a cabin chair and said, “So, you saved my life conduit. Yay for the machine chick. Maybe you still have a heart beneath all those servos and wiring. This will definitely make it harder to hook you up to that experience chamber.”

Palo stepped forward and said, “I think I have something figured out?” “Do you now,” Morigin said. “I’m guessing Jade brought you here because I was on death’s door. Cilbuper. Odiacz lives there deep in the crannies of the sewer system. Best healer in the galaxy. I’m also guessing you believe me a little bit more about your father’s work. By now you know Odiacz’s work is not the work of medicine or technology. Which only leaves the plausibility of what your father believed in, right?”

Palo looked impatient. “Listen for a second, would you? Yes. We’re on board with you now. But we found out the artifact you recovered from home wasn’t a part of the armor.”

Morigin looked up at Palo with a squinty eye and said, “It was a fake then?”

“Yes,” Vaga said. “Which means the people who tried to kill us stole the wrong one.”

Morigin started laughing boisterously, then held his chest and stopped laughing. “That is classic,” he said. “Right now Grand Minister Withryn or Hallastaare are trying to put on a piece of armor that won’t work.” “Hallastaare?” Vaga questioned.

“The Grand Minister?” Palo added.

“Sure,” Morigin said. “Which organizations benefit the most from the recovery of that armor?”

Vaga and Palo nodded in agreement.

“And crafty old Telo hid it somewhere special, right?” Morigin asked.

“Out in plain sight,” Palo said. He reached down to pickup the rucksack that him and Vaga filled with trinkets from his room. Trinkets they had originally planned on selling to barter for passage on a vessel after they escaped from Morigin. Palo shuffled threw the bag and retrieved a delicate box with tissue in it. He removed the lid and peeled away the tissue paper to reveal the delicate glove.

Vaga peered into the box and laid her eyes on the glove. When she first saw it, it held no rapture or gleam of her eye, but now she could see it – a faint shimmer that crackled about the fabric. She poked her finger at it. The fabric was unlike anything she felt before, almost absurdly delicate, like the skin of a long dead queen, yet it looked alive. She wanted to pick it up and put it on. She imagined herself wearing it – queen of the galalxy, knighting warriors, bringing peace.

“Cosmic power, huh,” Palo said. And before Morigin could lift a withered arm, Palo had lifted up the glove and pulled it over his right hand. A bright, white flash of light erupted from the glove, knocking Vaga backwards and then as they watched, fibers of white light sprung from the glove and wove through Palo’s skin. Thousands of threads wrapped and wove around his forearm, merging with his skin and reforming upon itself.

Vaga and Morigin shielded their eyes from the bright light and only heard Palo’s screams of pain as the glove wove itself into Palo and became a part of him. When the light died out, Vaga rushed to Palo’s side, but he was unconscious.

“Don’t touch him!” Morigin screamed. “Those who are not willed to the armor by the creator himself perish. You don’t want to be near him when his atoms disintegrate into seraphim.”

But nothing happened to Palo. The only thing that changed was his right hand and forearm, which now possessed a thick black armor with three rounded knots on the forearm and short spikes adorning the knuckles.

“What is that on his arm?” Vaga asked. “It doesn’t look good.”

Morigin hobbled himself up from the chair and stepped to Palo, where he nudged the armored gauntlet with his boot. “That’s the [RIGHT],” he said. “A pure manifestation of the dark vacuum of space, conjuror of black holes, devourer of life. A weapon that comes with great responsibility.”

At the word weapon, Vaga felt a shudder drift in front of her eyes and a warm glow in the center of her mind. Uh-oh. She knew that feeling – the sudden slip of control.

Morigin stood over Palo and said, “I’ll be damned. He was willed to the armor.”

Vaga’s mind grew frenetic and she bolted for the washroom to the sounds of Morigin saying, “Where are you going? I can’t lift him up in my delicate condition!”

Panting over the basin in the washroom, Vaga stared at her image in the washroom. Then she saw it. A barely perceptible shudder of her eyes, almost like a twitch. She ran some cool water and splashed her face. Another shudder. What was going on? Was this the end of her incredible journey as a human again? Her thoughts switched to Palo. The kiss. The mangled black gauntlet forged to his arm. Maybe there was something there, between them.

Then her thoughts were rattled by a blast to the ship a, that shook everything and knocked her down. In the cabin, she heard Jade’s voice saying, “That’s a warning shot, Captain. Incoming COM.”

“They better have a damn good reason for firing on us!” Morigin yelled back.

Vaga peered around the corner of the washroom to watch the exchange. The shuddering in her eyes had stopped. In the cabin, Jade switched to the message and at the first gurgly, slurred syllable, she didn’t need Jade to translate it to know it was Slavonian.

“Give us the conduit,” the Slavo leader said. “And we will not feast on you or your crew.”

They found her! How could it be? She lost them back at the Kcid station. Then she thought back to those strange feelings – the warm glows and the eye shudders. Her thoughts circled around the phetaserver in her brain. They bugged her! What was she thinking? Of course they bugged her, but every conduit was probably bugged. They wouldn’t let their most prized weapon against the GSA be lost to stray reboot.

She looked into the cabin at Palo lying on the floor grates, that hideous, evil looking weapon attached to his arm. She saw Morigin at the ship’s console, barking orders at Jade. She had doomed them all. At first, she did this to survive, but for some reason now, she felt attached to these people, to this ship. And her presence aboard it will end them. Vaga’s shoulders shuddered and tears streamed from her eyes. She didn’t recognize the reaction right away, but a long dormant memory immediately swept to mind – the night her parents told her they were moving to a backwater planet to escape the Nerge. She didn’t want to move, even if it meant death and all the thoughts of her friends whom she never would see again, overwhelmed her with a terrible sadness. A sadness like this one – the thought of her finally being human again, only to know that her conduit past would be the end of them. It was too much for a her, for her newly opened mind, so she let the blackout take her away.

* * *

Blackness.

Cold.

Light.

When Vaga opened her eyes a bright white light burned into the back of her skull.

Blink. There’s a room in white.

Blink. Her home was gone.

Blink. Where did my parents go?

Blink. Wait. There’s something on the ceiling.

When her pupils were used to the light she opened them fully – looking high above her on the ceiling. Above her hung a dismal, bloody mess. Someone was strapped to a table with their arms and legs splayed open, red muscles against white bone. Fused into the body's hands were thousands of nanofibers all stretched flat and extending outward to a machine.

Blink. What’s wrong with their head? Their skull was open. Is that their brain?

Vaga noticed that there were two domed droids – one each at the foot and head of the poor soul. Each droid had ten long spindly arms that reminded her of a bogspider. The droid at the victim’s head peeled back folds in their brain and the one at the other end worked on installing the last of the long flowing fibers into the arms and legs of the individual. Averting her eyes back to the robot near the head, she saw it press a thin box silver box into the brain.

Vaga blinked her eyes rapidly.

A sudden pressure pushed at the back of her eyes – it didn’t hurt but it felt odd.

Then she looked back at the ceiling and saw the droid pushing the thin silver box further into the person’s brain and she felt even more pressure on her eyes.

Something wasn’t right.

She tried to move but nothing worked except her eyes. A monitor somewhere in the room began beeping as her heart raced with fear. She wasn’t looking at another person being operated on. They were operating on her!

The machine in the room beeped louder and a red light began to flash. Electronic mumbling came from the droids. Their heads turned and inspected her – then a long silvery thin arm stretched over her head holding a large injector. With a quick, precise stab to Vaga’s neck the sedative was administered and her eyelids drooped shut.

Her mind fell back to her parents, playing with her. All of them having dinner together. Building their prefab home in the new colony. She remembered her room. Her simple bunk. Her rag doll thrown in the corner – the one her mom made from scraps of saffeta cloth.

Then she remembered her window – cut open. The large hands that reached through and grabbed her. Being dragged through the brush. She heard the crack-crack-crack of her father's rifle. Their screams as she was dragged out of range.

Then Blackness.

Chapter 16: Uninvited Guests

And like that the tendrils released him and Morigin felt breath hit his lungs and the air was so crisp, so inviting that he sat up straight from the dead and screamed.

But even that was too much energy for him to handle, so he fell back down in the pod, asleep – absolutely worn out from screaming to life.

“Morigin?” Jade’s sleek, female metallic voice whispered into his ear. “They will be back soon. You must wake up. The mission is lost if you don’t get up. They need direction. They need guidance. They are so young and both need you. Please wake up, Morigin.”

Opening his eyes, Morigin saw the ceiling grates of the Jade Tendril…home. He remembered installing those panels and the complex wiring and piping beneath them. He remembered screaming. Explosions. Plasma. A TON of plasma being volleyed around. He remembered holding the laminate cube under his arm, then scorched earth and the two thuds of the plasma bolts searing into his chest.

Then death.

But he was not dead. He clearly was in his ship, in his clothes, save for the nasty plasma burns through them. Reaching out of the medical pod, he slapped the cool plastellic shell of the device. It felt real. But maybe in death you live forever where you most desire? He sat up and looked around. If this was where death brought him, he was elated. A smile spread across his face. “Happy to be alive…again?” asked Jade.

Morigin twitched and then reached to his neck and pinched the skin around it. “Ow!” he wailed. “I guess I am alive. But if I’m alive, where are those two dingy sods that don’t have a mind between them? And where is my cube?!”

“The cube was taken,” Jade said.

“By whom?”

“Your killer.”

“I’ll kill him for that,” Morigin said. “And the others?”

“Taking Odiacz back to her hovel.”

“Ah,” Morigin said. “That explains my aliveness.” Morigin reached to the side of the pod and attempted to get out. “No haste makes waste and all that. Time to get to work again.” And as he pulled himself up, he fell crashing to the floor, unable to stand.

“Captain,” Jade said. “You need to rest. You need to regain your strength.”

Morigin sat on the floor and said, “So we lost the cube then?”

“Yes,” Jade said. “But it was a fake. Odiacz confirmed it.”

Morigin looked about the cabin and tried to get to his knees. “That is a master stroke from Telo, if there ever was one.” Morigin pulled himself up the back of a cabin chair and added, “What else did old squidhands have to say?” “She said if she knew Telo well enough, that he hid the artifact in the last place anyone suspicious would look.”

“In plain sight,” Morigin finished. “Well, pray I find it before those other two. If you are not willed to the armor by the creator, then die when you put it on. Sounds like something Palo would do.”

Another blast rocked the ship, knocking Morigin off balance at the console.

Slowly getting up, he said, “Great! Caught in a fight and both of my wingmen are taking naps! Jade, patch a COM through letting them know we don't have the conduit.”

“You do realize that they probably traced her,” Jade said. “They're not going to believe it.”

“Just send it!” Morigin growled. “It might buy us some time.”

“Message delivered,” Jade said. “We're tracking four Karridan class Slavo fighters forming a perimeter around the ship. Perhaps we should think about a trade. You did have her upload Telo's memories back to my database. She no longer has any value.”

Morigin rubbed his face and thought about it. He didn't want to show it, but he felt something different for the conduit. She saved his life, carried him out of that fray. Had she not, he might still be dead. Having a conduit around – a loyal one – would come in very handy in a tight spot.

“Incoming COM,” Jade said.

“Foolish, man,” the Salvo said. “All conduits are installed with tracking beacons. We know she is aboard your ship. You have lied to us! Prepare to die!”

'Wait!” Morigin yelled. “Tell them I'm bringing her out.”

Morigin turned around and walked to the washroom. His arms and legs tingled with exhaustion. He wouldn't be able to carry her for too far. Probably just enough to dump her down the ramp. He knelt down by her and gently patted her cheek. No response. Out cold. Morigin didn't want to do this. He reached down and picked her body up in his arms.

As he walked through the annex toward the ramp, he whispered in her ear, hopeful that something deep inside her would spark. “Don't know if you're listening, little thing. I know you've had a new lease on life, much like what you gave me, but I have no choice. So I'm hoping, beyond all hope, by the time we get out there that you can get in your conduity thing. You know kicking tailwise. I'm hoping it just kicks in, but to help it along, think about the Palo kid. I've seen the way he looks at you. He's got the butterflies for you. Plain as day on his face. And remember me, I'm not all that bad. I have some redeeming qualities...I've decided not to hook you up to that machine. And quite frankly, you could come in handy in some tustles.”

Morigin made it to the top of the ramp and looked outside. He could see two of the fighters keeping vigil outside. He leaned in to Vaga's ear again and said, “Lastly, don't let them take back what they already stole from you. You got your life back. Fight for it now!”

Morigin kneeled down and rolled Vaga down the ramp, cringing with every thump her head took on the way down. Then he slid his finger down his ear and activated hi COM. “Jade,” he said. “Get ready on both cannons. Target the fighters behind us first.”

“What about the front fighters?”

“Let me just say I sent up a little prayer,” he told her. “Wait for Vaga's move.” Behind his back, he detached two blasters from their wall mounts in the annex.

At the bottom of the ramp, Morigin saw two dozen Slavos approaching Vaga's crumpled body. He had Slavos before at a distance, but up close, he understood why every species feared them. Hideous amalgams of interspliced species – multiple eyes, tentacles, claws, hands, teeth, spines, armor plates all assymetrically fused together. He tried to imagine the genetic processes within their DNA, how they consumer their enemies and absorb their characteristics. He tried to see how the biology worked, but it was beyond his knowledge.

They approached Vaga's body and a handful of them picked her up and started to shackle her up. Morigin took the safeties off his blasters behind his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vaga's eyes open to pure white and the lighted squares down her arms and legs lit up.

“Show time,” Morigin said to himself.

But before he could even draw his weapons, Vaga spun out of their grasp in a flurry of kicks and jabs. Morigin watched in amazement as she tore into the Slavos outside. Every move had the quickness and precision of battle foresight. The Slavos opened fire on her, but in a flurry of cartwheels flips and twirls, Vaga dodge every plasma blast. She had taken out five Slavos already, when she stopped and out of her fingers sprung her nanfibers. They whipped out and grabbed attackers and flung them away. Some of the fibers strnagled the thick necks of the Slavos, while others penetrated their nasal passages and other orifices, yanking out brain matter, eyes and vital organs.

That was his cue, Morigin stood at the top of the ramp and fired volley after volley at the attacking Slavos. From behind the Jade Tendril, he heard tw explosions and knew Jade had opened fire on the flanking fighters. Most of the attacking Slavos were down. Vaga retracted her fibers and leaped at one of the approaching fighters. Scampering to the top of the fighter, she interfaced with the fighter and before long it spun out of control. That's when Vaga leaped from the crashing fighter and pulled herself onto the wing of the other fighter.

Morigin fired at the other fighter, but it fired back at him and it took all his energy to leap back into the annex of the ship. Lying on the cool floor grates, Morigin saw Vaga flip ont the back of the fighter and instead of interfacing with it, she reached down and tore the canopy off the cockpit, then hurled the pilot out of it. As the ship coasted in to a crash on the surface, Vaga rode it all the way down to the ground, where she flipped off and landed on the ground in front of the Tendril. Behind her, the fighter skidded into a building and exploded.

“By all the blackness!” Morigin muttered. “Having a conduit on board is definitely a plus!”

As Vaga stood there, a violent wind kicked up above her as a massive Slavo carrier ship hovered above her. A bath of lights snapped on and three different laser reticles targeted Vaga.

“Enough,” a voice boomed from the carrier ship. “We didn't think this would be easy.”

Morigin leaned into the cabin of the Tendril and said, “Can we do anything?”

Jade piped into Morigin's COM and said, “Our shields can't defend against that ships power. There is nothing we can do, Morigin.”

That's when Palo strode past Morigin and walked down the ramp. Morigin couldn't help but look at the dark gauntlet stretching over Palo's right arm. It made him shiver. And a devastating thoguht ran through Morigin's mind and he yelled, “Palo!! No!!!”

But it was too late. With his right hand directed at the carrier ship, Palo yet out a great yell and thick tarry rope of viscous blackness sprung from the gauntlet and enveloped the hovering ship. Palo screamed in pain as more thick tarry ropes wrapped around the ship, constricting it. The ship wavered, covered in the black ropes. Then in a planet crushing sound, the blackness flared around the ship, as tons of phalanx iron crumpled, creaked and imploded into sudden non-existence.

Palo collapsed in exhaustion as Morigin yelled, “Get in the ship!! Now!! Jade? Fire up the boosters and program a jump. We have to get out of here now!!”

Vaga helped Palo into the Tendril as Morigin watched where the ship once hovered. There in a tiny unseen point, dust and debris from the ground began swirling up into it and he could feel a slight tug to the air toward that unseen point. Even his sash wavered gently toward that point.

“What have we done?!”

Morigin retreated into the ship. In the cabin, the viewscreen was calculating the jump. Palo screamed in pain on the floor. “It burns! It's burning me!!”

“Strap in you two!” Morigin ordered. “If we don't get out of here now, we'll all meet our maker tonight.”

“Why is this thing burning him?” Vaga asked at Palo's side.

Morigin wiped his face with his sash and said, “It isn't burning. That's the pain of all the lives he just killed. Jade, we need to send an encrypted message to the GSA and warn them. Cilbuper has over ten billion citizens that will need to be evacuated immediately.”

“What's going on?” Vaga pleaded.

“Palo just unleashed a black hole on that carrier,” Morigin said. “It's only a matter of time before it absorbs the mass of the planet.”

“I did what?” Palo asked. “That can't be?! I just wanted to save you guys.” He began pulling at the gauntlet, digging into his skin, trying anything he could to remove it. “It won't come off!”

“Of course it won't come off!” yelled Morigin. “Once you put it on, you can't take it off unless your dead or you have the entire set of armor on.”

“What?!” Palo said. “I wouldn't have put it on if I knew that!”

Morigin just shook his head. “Jade how are we doing on the jump?”

“We're almost out of the atmosphere,” she said. “Once we're safely out of turbulnce we can make the jump.

Morigin stepped back and sat down in the captain's chair, where he pulled over the shoulder straps and locked them in. “Get strapped in!!”

Palo and Vaga scrambled to their seats and strapped in.

Morigin looked behind him at Palo's dark, armored arm. “It's not your fault, Palo. It's mine. I didn't warn you about it. There's no way you could have known. What's done is done. Going forward, remember that it reacts to your state of mind. You need to control yourself, otherwise you'll rip the galaxy apart.”

Sitting in his captain’s chair, Morigin thought long and hard what was about to happen to the planet of Cilbuper below them. Granted, Palo only opened a micro black hole, but Morigin knew of the ravenous appetite it would have. Within in a month, everything in that industrial park will have been sucked into it, generating more mass to collapse. After six months, the city itself would be consumed. A year from now, Cilbuper would be uninhabitable, the atmosphere swept away into its dark maw. Then the planetary matter would succumb next – the crust, the mantle, the core – like a great vampire the black hole would suck it all in.

Morigin thought about his dear friend Odiacz beneath the city’s surface. How her existence not only made believers out of Palo and Vaga, but himself too, years ago, when Telo brought him to visit her. After he witnessed her healing powers, he knew his life could only serve one purpose – the Gardaan and its recovery – the reclamation of belief systems and faith again, all the species of the galaxy united in harmony under one god. The thought of it was so great, he still had trouble fathoming it. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts in prayer, searching for that connection, the feeling of a great listener far, far away. When he felt it, he passed on a prayer for Odiacz, a warning for her to leave the only home she’d had for over 103 years and find a new one.

Morigin had forgotten he left his COM on from the battle, but it served him well as Jade had a private message for him. “The boy,” Jade said. “Seems to be a bit of a loose cannon.”

Morigin looked up to the green laser actuator at the top of the viewscreen and talked silently, knowing Jade would analyze his movements and successfully read his lips, “I know. That’s my fault. Will work with him. Did you send out the All Distress Signal to the GSA?”

“Yes,” Jade said into his ear COM. “They’ve assembled a team and have begun evacuation procedures. They’re projecting a 91% success rate.” “Good,” Morigin mouthed back. “Where exactly did you plot a course for?”

“An out of the way system called Tropocco,” Jade said. “Very backwater. Primitive races once lived there, but they have all but died out. Wonderful beaches. Teeming jungles. Brimming with life.”

Morigin smiled and mouthed, “A vacation it is then. We could use some down time.”

“What about Vaga’s beacon?”

“I’ve thought about that and think I have an idea. Are we past the initial jump phase? Don’t want to fall on my ass, if I get out to early.”

“We’re in phase two,” Jade said. “No need to be strapped in again until phase three.”

Morigin released his harness and said, “We're clear. Vaga? I need you at the console.” The others unstrapped, but Vaga hesitated.

“For what?” she asked.

“We need to take care of that beacon of yours,” Morigin said. “Don't want another batch of your friends to rain down on us.”

Vaga cocked her head and looked suspiciously at Morigin

Exhausted, Morigin grabbed Vaga’s arm and lead her to the console. “I need you to hook up with Jade.”

Vaga pulled her arm back. “You’d have to open up my head and undo everything they did?! No way!”

Morigin grabbed her hands and stuck it on the console. “Remember, I said I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Morigin said. “Jade, after she’s hooked in isolate the frequency, then implant that frequency in a homer, only pitch it so that the new frequency is timed at the opposite of hers.”

Jade chimed in and said, “I think I know what you have in mind. It’s okay Vaga, go ahead. Interface with me.”

Vaga finally listened, her eyes rolling white and the squares down her arms and legs lit up red. It only took a moment for Jade to isolate the signal, create it’s opposite and set the homer. A compartment in the console opened up with a small, button that dimly blinked red. Morigin, grabbed it and lashed it to an old piece of banya twine in his pocket and then turned around.

Vaga stepped forward to receive the homer, only Morigin stopped her. “It can’t be on you,” he said. “It has to be in close proximity but it won’t cancel out your signal if it’s directly on your person.”

He turned toward Palo and strung it around his neck. “That should do,” Morigin said.

Palo looked at it, then looked at Vaga and lastly looked at Morigin. “Why me?”

Morigin smiled and said, “You think she’d rather spend all her time with me? Remember, I was going to kill her. No one can live with that. But you two will do just fine.”

Palo and Vaga exchanged an awkward, coy glance. Together they

all looked at the blackened gauntlet on Palo's arm. as if death itself had latched onto him. As the Jade Tendril rocketed toward Tropocco, they all sat down and closed their eyes. They didn't know what was going to happen now, but they knew one portion of the galaxy would never be the same again, thanks to their mistakes.

Chapter 15: From the Dead

The whole garage shook and in the darkness, Palo grabbed for Vaga and both crashed to hard plasteel floor. Above them, a hole had opened up in the ceiling from the blast, showing thin clouds against the pale blue sky of Draedus. In the few moments of scrambling up from the floor, he gazed up through the hole and saw a ship strafe around the house, plasma shooting from its cannons.

“What is going on?” Vaga shouted as they ran to the side garage door.

Palo thought about it. He couldn't help but think back to that fateful night when he took extra credits to deliver his courier package to the wrong person, a courier package that he didn't know at the time contained a memory kor holding the last vestiges of his dead father – his memory. This situation was so far beyond anything he could have ever fathomed, that he had to stop in the garage to gather his thoughts.

“Come on,” Vaga said, pulling his arm. “This could be our chance to get away!” Another blast tore a hole in the front of the garage. Flames were now running along the roof and smoke billowed down on them.

Palo had to think. This had to be the handiwork of the man who ransacked his apartment, that much was for certain. They were after the kor, his father's memories. He had to get them back, but then he looked into Vaga's face and remembered she downloaded them to herself in an attempt to gain leverage on Morigin. They didn't need the kor anymore – as long as they had Vaga.

“Palo,” Vaga pleaded and coughed. “We must go NOW!”

“Wait!” Palo shouted. “We go out there now, we're dead! There is a ship out there razing the entire place. We need to hold back here as long as possible, make him think we died in the house. It's out only shot.”

Vaga's face had softened and he knew she couldn't resist the logic. Finding a corner away from the fires, they knelt down close the floor and pulled their shirt collars over their nose and mouth. Even with their clothing filtering the air, they still coughed and gagged.

“Listen,” Palo told Vaga. “When our friend is gone, we have to help Morigin. I know you think he's still going to hook you up to that chamber, but I'll find a way to get him to think otherwise. I need you.”

Her eyes runny and wet from the smoke, Palo sensed a brief wave of relief run across her face. He didn't know what it represented, but he felt perhaps, he had won her over, for the time being.

And even though Vaga appeared more open to the concept of travelling and even helping Morigin further, she looked at Palo and said, “And what exactly are you going to tell him that will convince him of that?”

“If he's alive,” Palo said. “I'll tell him you saved his life. And if he's dead, you have nothing to worry about.”

Palo coughed and held up his hand. He heard talking outside. He remembered that voice, even over the roaring fires above them and the idling starship engines outside. That was his attacker – the man he should have delivered his package to. He didn't hear Morigin's voice at all, so Morigin was either wounded badly or, worse, dead. A brief moment later, they heard the whine of boosters as the starship hovered away and rocketed into the atmosphere.

“Okay,” Vaga said. “He's gone. Let's go!”

Palo grabbed his pack with his father's gifts and helped Vaga up. Then, tripping over their feet in a hurry, they stumbled out of the garage. Their faces and hands covered in soot, they crawled through the burning, charred landscape to where Morigin's body lied with two plasma blasts smoking squarely in his chest.

Palo rolled him over to look at his face and noticed Morigin no longer had the cube. “I hadn't thought about the cube,” Palo said. He kicked himself for worrying about the kor containing his father's memory, when the more important piece, the gauntlet had been stolen right out from underneath them.

“Is he dead?” asked Vaga.

Palo peeled back Morigin's eyelids to see lifeless eyes and said, “He didn't make it.”

Just then, the Jade Tendril blasted through the trees and touched down in the smoky clearing with a vengeance, its exterior PA system screaming, “Morigin! Morigin!”

Palo and Vaga jumped back at the appearance of the ship and its ferocity. Fearful, Vaga grabbed Palo's hand and squeezed.

“Don't just stand there!” screamed Jade. “Lift him up and get him in here!”

“But, he's dead, Jade,” Palo dared to say.

“Don't you say it!” the ship barked back. “Just bring him in and hook him up to the medsystems. Now!”

Vaga and Palo leapt at her commands, each grabbing Morigin at oppsite ends and hauling him up the ramp and into the cabin. Once there a disguised wall panel made to look like a storage locker slid down and opened up revealing a compact tube with a clear plastic covering.

“Open it up,” Jade said as she was already closing the entrance ramp and firing the halo boosters for a takeoff. “Get him in there and hook him up to the leds and the IV.”

Palo and Vaga struggled to get him in the tube and as Vaga patched the leds onto Morigins chest and head, Palo stood transfixed, looking at the needle at the end of the IV tube.

“Hook up the IV Palo,” Jade said. That time her voice had calmed, but Palo sensed a bit of annoyance in the voice.

Palo grabbed the needle and motioned to inside elbow of Morigin's left arm. Deftly jabbing the needle at the skin, he was obviously having issues.

“Get the IV in now, Palo!” Jade was back to yelling.

Palo backed away and threw up his hands. “I don't know any of this! I was a courier, not a nurse!!”

Vaga finished with the leds and grabbed the IV needle from Palo's hands and deftly inserted it into Morigin's arm and closed the tube. “Go, Jade,” she said.

Jade closed the tube and retracted it into the bowels of the ship. Palo thought the whole process seemed odd, watching Jade swallow up Morigin's body like that. He thought of swamplikker bugs and how the female always tore apart the male after breeding and fed him to the larvae.

Vaga patted him on the shoulder and slumped down in one of the plush cabin chairs.

Palo turned to her and said, “Where did you learn to do that?”

Vaga shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don't know. I don't remember learning it. I'm guessing part of the programming for conduits is field triage.”

Palo sat down next to her and said, “Is there a lot of stuff you can do that you don't remember learning?”

Vaga turned away and looked uncomfortable. Obviously there was a lot about being a conduit that made her self conscious. Palo imagined she probably had done a lot of stuff she wouldn't have had she been allowed a normal human life. “I'm sorry,” Palo said. “I didn't mean to pry.”

The viewscreen in the cabin lit up, showing the expanse of space. A reticle bounced from location to location, running different analyses on them.

Palo stood up and said, “Where are we headed? What're we going to do?”

For a few moments, Jade ignored them, busy with her calculations.

“Jade?” Palo said.

Vaga kicked her feet up on another chair and said, “You better find one hell of a medic, Jade. I plugged Morigin in. I sensed no life signs, even in your medical systems.”

“Quiet, conduit,” Jade said sternly. “I'm searching for something. Here it is! Prepare for departure. Setting course for Odiacz.”

Vaga turned her head to the viewscreen and said, “Odiacz? Never heard of that system...and I've been around.”

The viewscreen pulled up a brownish planet called Cilbuper-2 populated with massive city structures all lit up in activity and business. Then Jade pulled up a window file showing a creature with no facial features and long braided brown hair. “Odiacz isn't a planet or system. She's a healer. A friend of your father's, Palo.”

* * *

“You must bring me to him immediately,” Odiacz told them.

Palo couldn't help but stare at the strange woman. With no features on her face: no eyes, nose or mouth; he thought it a miracle that he could hear her speak. Not to mention, her choice of home. Ostracized by the public, Odiacz found her home deep within the bowels of the sewer. Condensation dripped on them from above and every corner they heard the trickle of water running. And the smell. Palo tried to be polite, but he kept rubbing his nose because he couldn't stand it anymore.

Vaga grabbed his arm and said, “Palo? She wants to go.”

“Right,” he said. “Not a moment too soon.”

Together the three of them wandered through the sewers and made their way up to the city, to an abandoned industrial park, where the Jade Tendril sat waiting, the ramp down and ready for their arrival.

Palo ushered Odiacz up the ramp and Vaga followed. In the ship's cabin, they saw the medical tube open and Morigin lying in it, the black plasma burns on his chest staring back at them.

“Oh, my dear,” Odiacz said. She ran to Morigin's side, her dirty, tattered, slothen robes swishing in her wake. Once there, she dropped to her knees and held up an arm through her robes, only what came out wasn't an arm, but series of five brown tentacles that slithered about Morigin's body, searching for places to attach to his skin.

Palo tapped Vaga on the shoulder and said, “What is she doing?”

Vaga looked at him with a surprised face and said, “What? You think I know what she's doing? I stowed away on this ship. I have no idea what is going on.”

Then Odiacz chanted something and the tentacles over Morigin's body made little sucking or kissing noises on his body. Palo leaned toward the action to get a glimpse of the tentacles. In a way, they reminded him of the first time he saw Vaga use hers, only hers were fibrous interfacers for technology. Just as Palo leaned his head over the tentacle covered body, Morigin sat up and screamed a gurgly, blood-curdling scream, causing Palo to skitter backwards and fall over a plush cabin chair.

Morigin coughed and then collapsed back in the pod. Now the medunit registered a heartbeat and breathing with lonely beeps and whistles.

Odiacz retracted her hand tentacles beneath her robes and slowly stood up. “I am weak. Water. Please, may I have some water.”

Vaga helped her to a chair, while Palo brushed himself off and retrieved a waterpac for her. Sitting in the cabin with the strange woman in silence, Palo wondered why they hadn't heard Jade since they got back. He felt lost. He glanced at Vaga, but she too had the same blank look he had. For the first time since they all met, both of them realized that without Morigin, they had no direction.

The strange tentacle woman sat across from them, her tentacles wrapped around the waterpac, sucking the water from the foil package. Palo figured, after all this, that she used telepathy to speak. That was the only explanation.

“You are correct,” Odiacz said. “Do not be embarassed for your thoughts about me. I have chosen the life I lead. But now your friend, dear Morigin is better. He will heal properly, so apply your standard bandages and ointments. He will be weak and may need help doing things. Before long you will have your direction again.”

“But what is that direction?” Palo asked, leaning closer to her. “You were a friend of my father's, I am just beginning to grasp all this. I feel like we're caught up in something so big, there isn't any possible way to affect anything.”

“Ah, but you do,” ahe said, her tentacles still making the sucking noises on the waterpac. “Your father always said you had it in you, that somewhere deep inside you believed, but you just lost sight of it. What you just witnessed was a testament to his beliefs. Morigin is not alive because of a technological miracle, boy. He's alive because it willed him back to life.”

“It?” Vaga asked.

“Zetu, Fharj'Enhet, God, Kalickna, Etuney,” she rambled on. “Every species has a name for it – the divine creator, the binding will of the universe.”

“But that's impossible,” Vaga said.

“No, not impossible,” Odiacz said. “Only forgotten over millenia of disbelief.”

“But we don't even know where to start,” Palo said. “Morigin died trying to protect some weird gauntlet my father had found.”

Odiacz gasped and her tentacles stopped sucking on the waterpac. “He found it?”

Palo looked confused. “Um, yes. But it doesn't matter. They took it.”

Odiacz leaned toward Palo and said, “Describe it to me. What did it look like?”

“I don't know,” Palo said. “It was shiny.”

“It was golden and encrusted with fabulous jewels,” Vaga said, remembering how attractive it looked to her. “When I gazed upon on it, I felt odd, almost like their was a power that emanated from it.”

Odiacz leaned back in her chair and made a noise that sounded like wet mud hitting the floor. “Ah, no worries, friends.”

“What do you mean no worries?” Palo asked. “They took it. Morigin said there were a bunch of pieces to this armor and if someone collected them all, they be granted a great power. We lost the piece!”

“Your father,” Odiacz said. “You underestimate him. What you saw was not a piece of the armor. It was a fake. Your father knew he was being watched by other forces. He knew if the piece got into the wrong hands it could be disastrous.”

“But if what they stole was a fake,” Vaga said. “Where is the real piece?”

Odiacz's tentacles went back to suckling the waterpac and she said, “If I know your father well enough, he hid it in the last place anyone suspicious would look. Out in plain sight.”