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PLANET LILLIPA: SOLOMONDI’S RESIDENCE, A.K.A. “THE TOWER”
Sahara hissed in pain as Levia slowly, carefully removed the bullet lodged in her thigh.
“Big baby,” Devi teased. The white-haired girl pressed her talis against the wound and closed her eyes. A soft green glow caressed Sahara’s tender skin.
“Maybe I should shoot you and see how much
you like it,” the sniper grumbled.
Devi ignored her. She concentrated hard, willing the photon energy to do her bidding, molding its power into a force for healing. That energy, in turn, stimulated cell growth within Sahara’s body. New tissue filled in the gaps that had been torn open by the bullet. When Devi removed the talis, nothing more than a small circular scar remained.
Sahara gingerly ran her fingers over the spot. She was impressed by the girl’s speed and skill. “Not bad, kid. Guess I won’t shoot you after all.”
Across the room, the elevator chimed. Sahara was instantly on alert. Still seated, she aimed her weapon squarely at the heavy doors, ready for another gunfight. Levia merely lowered herself into a fighting stance.
The elevator doors slid open with their usual grace, revealing the three occupants inside: Akasha, Kira, and Aster.
“Whoa, point that thing somewhere else,” exclaimed Kira as they entered the chamber. “We come in peace!”
“Got the incriminating data on Solomondi?” asked Sahara, lowering the rifle.
“Right here.” Aster patted her bulging pocket, evidently filled with data disks. “Did you get…,” she began, but stopped when her gaze fell on the remains of the crime boss sprawled in the corner of the room. “Ah, I see you did. Looks like you’re good for something after all.”
“Actually, that was Levia’s handiwork. I was too busy savin’ Devi over here. Ain’t that right, kid?” Sahara ruffled the Newearl’s silky hair.
Kira bent down next to Solomondi’s body. The gaping maw in his chest revealed a tangle of circuits and wires. “This is… not exactly what I was expecting.”
“Solomondi was a CAST?” asked Akasha.
“Looks like it,” Sahara responded nonchalantly.
Kira strode towards the center of the room. Akasha and Aster followed close behind. “Either way, it looks like our work here is done. Aside from getting back to the landing zone, that is.”
Devi’s face lit up when she got a good look at Akasha. “Big sister! You’ve got a tattoo on your face just like I do! Were you also sold to KAI-OS?”
“No, I… Wait, this is a KAI-OS tattoo?”
Devi cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, of course! Didn’t you know that? Yours is a mark of the lowest caste, the slaves. It means you belong to KAI-OS.”
Akasha looked stricken. Her fingers traced the intricate patterns covering the left side of her face from forehead to cheek. “I… I never knew…”
“And what does
your tattoo mean?” asked Kira. A series of vertical blue lines ran down the right side of Devi’s face. Unlike Akasha’s, they were glowing faintly as if suffused with photon energy.
“Mine?” Devi giggled. “Well, actually—”
Aster, who’d been inconspicuously easing her way around the perimeter of the group, suddenly sprang into action. Her knife was pressed against Devi’s throat before anyone realized what was happening. “Don’t move,” she warned.
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Kira clenched her fists but stayed put. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I knew we couldn’t trust her!” exclaimed Sahara.
“Who are you?” Aster growled.
The sniper frowned. “Huh? You know damn well who we are—”
“Not
you, you idiot.
Her.” Aster dug her blade a little deeper into the girl’s neck for emphasis. A single drop of blood rolled down her immaculate skin.
“Are you nuts?!” Sahara shouted angrily. “She’s not one of the bad guys, she’s just a kid! She even healed me after the fight. I can show you the scar to prove it.” The sniper patted the bullet hole in her pant leg.
“Let her go.” Akasha’s words were mild, her tone calm, but the tranquilizer gun pointed at Aster spoke volumes. Nevertheless, the other woman refused to budge. “I said, let her go. I
will shoot you.”
The Deuman’s glowing yellow eyes were smoldering. “You don’t want to do this.”
“No, but I will if I have to. Now drop it.”
Aster hesitated for a moment, then slowly backed away from Devi. Scowling, she let her blade fall to the tile floor.
“You alright, kid?” Sahara asked Devi, her rifle—and her gaze—trained on Aster.
The twin-tailed girl touched her neck. When she removed her hand, two fingers were smeared with blood. “Yes… fine.” She looked up as Aster walked past. “But
she won’t be.”
Devi plunged Aster’s knife deep into the woman’s left thigh. The weapon had somehow found its way into the girl’s hand, despite no one seeing her pick it up.
Aster gasped in pain and whirled around, the knife still stuck in her leg. “You little bit—
AUGGGGHHHHH!!!” An agonized scream escaped her lips. She grabbed the sides of her head and fell to the floor, convulsing in spasms. After a few seconds she stopped moving altogether.
“Wh-What the hell just happened to her?!”
Devi smiled broadly at Sahara. Her appearance was still that of a child, but her bearing suddenly seemed older and wiser. And much more malevolent. “Simple. I overloaded the parieto-insular cortex in her brain. The mind isn’t equipped to handle that much pain so she passed out.” The little Newearl pouted. “It’s too bad… she forced my hand early. I was going to play along a bit more.”
“You… she was right about you…”
“I was a slave once… and before that, a failed experiment. Now I’m the absolute ruler of this place, the true King behind the throne. Actually,
goddess might be more appropriate.” She regarded the crumpled form in the corner. “Poor, foolish Solomondi, he thought he could control me. It was so delightfully easy to break his mind, to twist it to my purposes. In the end he was on his knees begging to serve me. Even after I had his brain implanted in that mechanical body his devotion to me never wavered… Look at him, lying there. He’s nothing but a broken puppet now. But no matter, he can easily be replaced.”
While Devi was talking, Kira bent down next to Aster’s unconscious body and pulled the knife out of her leg. She employed her yellow bandana as a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood. Now she looked up at the young Newearl, her eyes full of defiance. “You think we’re going to sit back and let you get away with this?”
Devi threw back her head and laughed. “Of course not, silly! But there’s not much you can do about it. You were all under my spell the moment you set foot in this place. And you still are.”
Suddenly the girl standing before Kira was gone. In her place, her beaming smile so familiar and yet so alien, was Kira’s older sister, Faraday. “Hey, Kir. Been awhile, hasn’t it? You’ve grown up so much since I last saw you. I mean heck, look at you! An ARKS soldier and team leader to boot. Dad must be real proud.”
“This… isn’t real,” Kira growled through clenched teeth. Bitter tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Fara’s gone… she disappeared! I’ve been searching all this time, and now…”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’? I’m right here in front of you! We can be together again, just like when we were kids. How ‘bout it, sis? What do you say?”
“That’s enough!!” shouted the Gunner. “Get… out… of… my… HEAD!!!” Kira swung Aster’s blade as hard as she could. It wasn’t aimed at her illusory sister, though. It was aimed at herself. The knife found her leg and she cried out as it tore through her skin. In front of her, Faraday vanished as Devi reappeared.
“Using pain to break my illusion… clever, yet foolish. Or have you already forgotten what happened to your Deuman friend?”
Kira felt it all at once. It was as if someone—Devi—had taken her pain receptors and dialed them up far beyond the maximum setting. Searing white-hot agony exploded throughout her body, paralyzing her, and then… blackness. She collapsed motionless beside Aster on the floor.
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Devi smirked in amusement. “Anyone else want to give it a try, or have you all decided to play nice? I can always—” She jerked backwards as one of Levia’s daggers spiraled through the air towards her. The blade narrowly missed her body but lopped off the tip of her left hair tail.
Too late, the Newearl realized the first dagger was only a diversion. Levia came flying at Devi, both hands gripping her other dagger in a forward thrusting motion. There was no time to evade it. The blade plunged straight into her chest—and completely through it. Like a phantom, the image of Devi became transparent before vanishing altogether.
Just like what happened during the fight with Solomondi, Levia realized. At the time she’d attributed the strange disappearing act to Solomondi, but now she realized it had been Devi’s doing all along. The girl was playing tricks on her mind…
Levia whirled around, seeking her target. Instead of one she found four of them. Where Akasha and Sahara once stood, a pair of Devis now stared back at her. Where Kira and Aster once lay unconscious, a second pair of Devis were now sprawled on the floor. The rest of Levia’s team was nowhere in sight.
“Tsk tsk,” scolded the Akasha-Devi. “That wasn’t very nice of you, interrupting me like that.”
The Sahara-Devi looked at Levia appraisingly. “You have an exquisite mind. Such wonders you’ve seen… and such horrors. Even now, after I’ve hurt your friends, you have no desire to exact revenge against me. You only want to stop me because of the damage you think I’ll do, left unchecked.”
The Kira-Devi woke from her slumber and stood next to the other two. “Well, you’re not wrong. I’ve done plenty of damage already and I’ll probably do plenty more. When you’re the head of a major crime syndicate it sort of comes with the territory.”
“But what will you do now?” The Aster-Devi climbed to her feet. “Can you attack, not knowing which is the real me?”
Levia studied the quartet of identical twins. The Newearl was right, there was no way to differentiate between them. That left only one choice. When faced with an impossible decision, sometimes the best solution is to think around it. “You are projecting images into my mind,” she said. “This is likely an attempt at misdirection, to goad me into attacking my teammates. If that is your intention, I assure you your efforts will not succeed. In fact, assuming your abilities are all based on mental manipulation, it is logical to assume you haven’t moved your physical location. In which case—” The robed woman spun in place, her blade carving a wide arc through the air.
“A good guess,” said Devi, “but you didn’t really think I’d stay within striking distance, did you?” The Devi imposters faded away, replaced by the four ARKS. The real Devi was off to the side, out of Levia’s immediate reach. “You’ve been a most interesting playmate. It would be a shame to kill you, especially with so many juicy secrets tucked away inside that brain of yours. Unfortunately I have other guests to attend to and you’re simply too dangerous to be left alone. Perhaps we’ll play again later. For now, sleep.”
Devi snapped her fingers. Levia staggered forward, suddenly unable to maintain her balance. It was as if all the energy had been drained out of her. Her eyelids grew heavier, her body weaker, until finally she succumbed to the inescapable clutches of sleep.
“Pleasant dreams,” giggled Devi. She turned her attention to the two remaining ARKS. “Now then, where was I? Oh yes, your surrender!”
Sahara lowered her weapon and held out a hand. “It doesn’t have to go down like this, kid. Come back with us to
Ur and I promise we’ll take care of you. We can all walk away from this, it’s not too late.”
“Oh,
please.” The girl rolled her eyes. “You still don’t seem to understand the position you’re in, so let me make it clear for you. You’re going to do whatever I want, whenever I want, or I’m going to hurt you. And I’ll keep hurting you until you
do understand. If you amuse me maybe I’ll keep you around for a while. You know, I’ve been wanting a pet…”
“I offer to help and this is how you repay me? You’re nothing but a spoiled brat—and I think it’s high time someone taught you some manners!”
Devi smiled. “My my, getting a little
hot under the collar, aren’t we?”
“Huh? What does that have to do with…” Sahara trailed off mid-sentence. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. “What… what’s happening… to me…?” She fell to her knees, grasping at the buttons on her tunic. It felt like she was trapped in an oven and someone was slowly turning the dial hotter and hotter.
“The first lesson of your obedience training. It’s unpleasant, I know, but just remember—it ends whenever you want it to end. All you have to do is pledge your undying loyalty to me. After that maybe I’ll teach you to play fetch and roll over…”
“Screw… you…,” Sahara wheezed, her throat parched from the imaginary heat. She ripped open the last button and frantically pulled off her sweat-soaked top. No good—it was still too hot, and getting hotter. Her boots and socks came off next. That provided a moment’s relief, though Devi made sure it was short lived.
It’s all in my head... It’s all in my head…, she kept repeating to herself. It didn’t help. “A-Akasha… please… do something… help me…”
“Stop this,” Akasha ordered, aiming her tranquilizer pistol at Devi. “You’re hurting her.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll live. I’m trying to break her, not kill her.”
Akasha was in no mood for games. She pulled the trigger—or tried to, anyway. When she looked down, the gun was no longer in her hand.
“Looking for
this?” The girl waggled the pistol playfully. How she’d gotten it, Akasha didn’t know. “You really should be more careful with it—you might shoot someone! Like this.”
Devi took aim and fired. A dart struck Akasha in the right shoulder. The big Newearl felt lightheaded and her vision began to blur. She tottered back and forth, trying to remain upright, then her world faded to black…
* * * * * * * * *
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KEL’ARDRE STAR SYSTEM: BRIDGE OF THE ORACLE HEAVY CRUISER HERMES
It was inevitable, really. Whether this time or the next, or the hundredth time after that, it was bound to happen. The laws of probability practically guaranteed it.
Admiral Damian Ramos watched in abject fascination as the golden disk spun through the air.
Such a thing of beauty, he marveled.
A second from now it will become a mere statistic. Not yet, though. Right now, at this moment, its potential is limitless. Absolute. A perfect metaphor for life.
“Admiral.”
Ramos ignored his executive officer. The XO could wait a little longer. He swiped the glittering ten-meseta coin out of the air and slapped it against the back of his palm.
Tails. That made nine in a row. One more and he’d be at magical number ten, the number he’d been trying to reach all day. He readied the final, decisive flip.
“Sir, there is a matter that requires your attention.”
“Just a moment, Alice. I’m going for number ten now. You know what’re the odds of getting ten tails in a row? Less than one in a thousand. And this could be the one!”
Alice sighed.
He’s probably flipped that coin more than a thousand times today so it doesn’t surprise me. “Admiral,
please, we’ve got a contact on long-range sensors. It’s coming up on us rather quickly…”
Ramos flicked the coin into the air. At that exact moment, a symphony of warning klaxons started blaring. They were accompanied by a powerful flashing light that bathed the bridge in rolling waves of crimson.
The coin fell to the floor, immediately forgotten. It bounced once, twice, then spun on its edge before finally coming to a stop.
It had landed on tails.
“Admiral Ramos!” the sensor analyst called out. “Ship’s transponder has just identified the contact. It’s… it’s the colony ship
Orpheus!”
The admiral leapt out of his chair. “That’s impossible! There’s no way…
Orpheus was destroyed in the Rift almost a year ago. Where the hell’d it come from?”
“It just emerged from warp, sir, bearing straight for us.”
Alice adjusted her glasses, a nervous habit. “Ensign, put it on the forward viewscreeen, magnification factor ten. Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”
The starfield in front of them shifted and a gargantuan black mass filled the screen. This was no colony ship of the Oracle fleet, it was something else… something worse. Much worse. Perhaps it had once been
Orpheus, Ramos conceded, but this… monstrosity… looked more like a colossal Darker than a spacefaring vessel. Covered in overlapping armor plates, punctuated by a series of dorsal ridges, and bristling with clusters of irregularly-shaped spines, it was a foreboding sight indeed.
Ramos stood aghast, hardly believing what he was seeing. Everyone in Oracle knew of the Fifth Fleet Massacre, the tragedy that claimed so many lives. They’d been told the entire fleet was wiped out, decimated in a Darker ambush, yet here was undeniable proof to the contrary.
Orpheus hadn’t been destroyed… it had been
assimilated. And if the Darkers now controlled
Orpheus…
“Fowler,” he said, his voice low, “how long until we’re in firing range?”
The weapons officer studied the readout on the control panel in front of him. “Sixty seconds, Admiral.”
Ramos turned to his stern-faced communications officer, a recent addition to the bridge crew. “Have you tried hailing them?”
“Several times. No response.”
“Very well. Put me through to the fleet.”
The officer punched in a command, then nodded to Ramos. The admiral cleared his throat. “All ships, this is Admiral Ramos. As you’ve no doubt noticed, we have a rather unique contact inbound on an intercept course. Contact is unresponsive and assumed hostile. I repeat, contact is assumed hostile. Get those shields up and weapons ready. Prepare to fire on my command.”
The final thirty seconds ticked by at a glacial pace. Beads of sweat coalesced on the admiral’s furrowed brow. His entire life had led to this moment, this confrontation; his actions over the next few minutes would determine its outcome. He should’ve been shaking in his boots—and probably would have been, had his position afforded such luxuries. But no, he was the commander of the Oracle Navy’s Seventh Fleet. There were things expected of him… and weakness wasn’t one of them.
Still, it was rather ironic. He was a man who had always placed absolute faith in the power of chance. It was his strong conviction that luck was simply making the best of circumstances, that with enough resources and willpower he could turn any situation to his favor. And yet—
Of all the ships in all the star systems scattered throughout the galaxy, he had ended up in the one with the most absurd situation imaginable. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought,
What’re the odds?
The timer hit zero.
Orpheus reached—and crossed—the invisible boundary separating safety from danger, war from peace, life from death. It was within firing range, yet the man in the admiral’s uniform remained unnervingly silent.
Behind him, Alice fidgeted. “Admiral…”
Ramos ignored her. As he stared intently at the aberration bearing down on them, he couldn’t help but wonder:
What if there are still survivors on board?
Survivors who’ve held onto the slim hope of rescue for the past year, only to be attacked by the very people sworn to protect them?
Can I take that risk? And would it change my decision even if it were true?
Ramos closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He already knew the answer. “All ships, OPEN FIRE!!” he bellowed.
In an instant the darkness of space gave way to multiple streams of blinding white-gold light. Overlapping fields of fire converged on the approaching colony ship, a hundred gun batteries hurling photon-infused projectiles across the void.
The black behemoth continued unfazed.
The Seventh Fleet formed up around
Hermes, intensifying their effort. Dozens of small fighter craft harried
Orpheus like a swarm of flies, peppering the vessel with missile strikes and strafing runs. Still the colony ship pushed ahead.
From the bridge of
Hermes, Admiral Ramos watched the tiny blossoms of light erupting in the distance. And he was worried. Despite being pummeled by enemy fire,
Orpheus had yet to retaliate. What were they waiting for?
As if answering that question, Lieutenant Fowler suddenly announced, “Sir, there’s… some kind of energy reaction coming from
Orpheus. It’s… it’s almost like…”
He never got to finish his thought. A brilliant red beam burst forth from the nose of the colony ship, headed directly for them. The entire bridge flooded with light.
And then darkness.
* * * * * * * * *
The battle didn’t last long. By the time the last fiery explosion died away, only one vessel remained intact.
Orpheus continued its relentless, unyielding march towards the space station
Terra Nova. The great beast plowed onward without flinching, easily brushing aside the broken, battered husks of Oracle warships in its way. Some of the wreckage was still smoldering.
Even once-mighty
Hermes, proud flagship of the Seventh Fleet, drifted lifelessly through the darkness, its sloping bow crumpled and twisted like a cheap plastic model. There was a gaping hole where its command deck once stood; not a single soul had survived.
The odds, it seemed, had not been in their favor that day.
TO BE CONTINUED
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As for Devi's markings, you will just have to wait to find out.
Although her part in the story isn't done yet, either.
Originally Posted by AIDA
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