Symphonies of Valor Page 17

  She cut the comm channel and smiled.

  “That was a side of you I’ve never seen before.”

  “Commanding? Compelling?”

  “Caring. It seemed like you cared. I thought you were only about revenge for what the Mimics did to your family.”

  Vengeance was the initial motivation. Jonas remembered a time when there were no other competing thoughts in his mind. It fueled his will to live, to endure life in a maximum security prison. Slowly, Whisper, Nume, Alyana, and others planted themselves into his consciousness. Without fully realizing it, he started to care about them, wanting to help them however he could. “Did it work?” Jonas rested his hand on her shoulder. “Are the retreating ships returning to the fight?”

  “I… I’m getting acknowledgment pings. Looks like you did it, Jonas!”

  Klaxons sounded on the bridge.

  “What now?” Jonas murmured.

  “Proximity alert.” Alyana’s fingers moved quickly across her console. “Putting it on viewscreen.”

  “I see nothing…”

  “Whatever it is, it’s massive. So much gravity... Setting thrusters at full power to keep us from being pulled in…”

  The debris within the battlefield swirled around an invisible object.

  A white ring of light suddenly appeared at the edge of the swirls, spinning rapidly in place. In the next moment, the rings pulsed, expanding and contracting.

  “I’m reading an energy surge…” Alyana looked up at the viewscreen. “Could that be a Guardian?”

  “I don’t know…” Jonas shook his head. “It must be…” The object Jonas first discovered in the Telmun system was large, but nowhere near as massive as the planetoid-sized object appearing before the Valor.

  “It’s almost the size of Pluto…” Alyana whispered to herself.

  Jonas sat across Alyana at tactical. “Mimic ships are retreating…”

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Wait…” Jonas wrinkled his brow. “They’re regrouping. They’re ignoring human ships and heading toward the Guardian. Move us further back from the fight. Alert the other ships to do the same.”

  “Is there only one Guardian?” Alyana glanced at Jonas while she followed his orders. “It’s heavily outnumbered. One versus thousands of Mimic ships.”

  “I don’t know,” Jonas said. “The Katok archives never drilled into the details.”

  Dozens at a time, the Mimic ships rammed themselves into the outer surface of the Guardian, coating the entire exterior of the planet-sized creature in a matte, black goo.

  “I’ve seen this behavior in Mimics before,” Jonas said. “I think they’re trying to devour it.”

  “Can they really do that to something so big?”

  “We’ll find out.” He shrugged.

  The Mimic ships continued to crash into the Guardian, merging themselves into a massive living oil spill on the surface of the creature.

  “Unless there’s something wrong with our sensors…” Alyana said in a soft voice. “This can’t be…”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s growing!” She nearly jumped out of her seat.

  “What is? The Guardian?”

  “Yes! I’m reading a steady growth in surface area and volume!” Alyana rubbed her chin. “What do you think could be happening?”

  “I really can’t say for sure.” Jonas narrowed his eyes. “But the Guardian might have found their food source.”

  “We’re getting hails from the surviving ships,” Alyana said. “They’re asking a lot of questions.”

  “Tell them to gather survivors.” Jonas returned to the captain’s chair. “Then we’ll rendezvous back at Earth.”

  27

  The Guardian vanished as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared, through the wormhole-like portal that transported it into existence. For hours it fed and grew, more than tripling in size and mass as it absorbed the Mimic swarm, a fitting end to the invasive species that preyed on humans.

  Jonas, still in the captain’s chair of the Valor, stared blankly at the main viewscreen. His lips held steady in a straight line. Not a trace of Mimic presence remained in the system. The battle was over. The Earth Defense Force won. More importantly, there were survivors. Tens of thousands of them. Humanity staved off annihilation. Jonas exhaled a deep sigh. Try as he might, he could not fill the emptiness in his core. There were no feelings of elation or cheer. The cost of victory was immeasurable. Whisper, Nume, Meomi, and billions of other colonists were gone.

  Alyana coordinated the rescue efforts with the rest of Fleet as the remaining ships looked to the Valor for guidance. Thousands of escape pods and disabled ships inundated her with hails. Her face mirrored that of Jonas’. Other than the beeps and whirls of the instrument panels, the bridge of the Valor had never been more silent.

  On Earth, the Kels stopped attacking as soon as the Guardians appeared. According to multiple accounts, most invaders tipped over and died. Their lights extinguished from within, leaving behind a charred shell.

  Earth itself was leveled with all the main cities reduced to rubble. Cold, darkened bodies lined the streets. Survivors wailed in sorrow as they searched the wreckage for loved ones. The planet wasn’t the only thing scarred by the invasion, but at least it was there. Humanity still had a home.

  “Do you think Nume is coming back?” Alyana asked, first to break the quiet.

  “I have no way to answer that,” Jonas replied without facing her. His mind replayed the scene of Whisper’s death. The sensation of her skin lingered on his fingers. The smell of her blood persisted in his nostrils. His heart ached more than he could bear as it swelled with torment.

  “Is it really over?” Alyana glanced back at Jonas. “Did we finally win?”

  “I have no way to answer that, either.” He lowered his eyes. “But I hope so. I don’t have any fight left in me.”

  “I have a count: 27,368 surviving sailors out of the roughly 250,000 that started this battle.” Alyana scoffed. “Who knows how many are left on Earth and the outer colonies? There can’t be more than few million humans left. What do we do now?”

  A flash of red crossed Jonas’ field of vision. He looked down to see blood dripping onto his forearm. Pain flared as he wiped the cut on his scalp. “We lick our wounds. We rebuild. What else can we do?”

  Alyana narrowed her eyes. “I was hoping for more…”

  Klaxons blared.

  “Intruder alert!” Alyana shouted.

  “Where?” Jonas yelled back.

  “Searching…” Alyana tapped furiously at her terminal. “Having trouble getting a precise location. Whatever it is, it’s not human.”

  “I’ll be on comms.” Jonas grabbed his helmet and jumped out of his chair. “Seal the bridge, let no one in but me.”

  “Wait!” Alyana chased Jonas. “I’m coming with you.” She looked away. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  “No,” Jonas said bluntly. He wasn’t about to risk losing the last person he cared for in this universe. “I need you to stay and monitor things from the bridge.”

  Alyana backed off to his surprise. She had a tendency to argue.

  Jonas headed for the weapons’ locker for ammo.

  “I’ve narrowed the intruder to the brig deck,” Alyana said. “Be careful, Jonas. Roni is still there. She could be trying to escape. I don’t know what I’ll do if anything happened to you…”

  “Heading to the brig deck now,” Jonas said, unsure how else to respond. The ship’s sensors fed into his Obscura suit mini-map. A red dot waited for Jonas behind the door to the brig. “Status on Roni’s containment field?”

  “I’m not reading any power disruptions,” Alyana replied. “Roni should still be caged.”

  “Then how could she trigger an intruder alert?” He wrinkled his forehead.

  “Maybe whatever was inside with Roni, killed her. Jonas, I have a bad feeling…”

  “Remember my orders. Don�
��t unseal the bridge for anyone but me.”

  Behind the door was another unknown. Jonas should be used to dealing with alien life forms and unexplainable anomalies by now. But unknowns usually came with uncertainty, especially in their powers and abilities. His body hadn’t fully healed from his fight with Raven. He took a deep breath and injected himself with a combat stim. A wave of heat coursed through his veins. “Going in now.”

  Jonas had the intention to fire immediately upon whatever he saw whether the target was Roni or something else. He didn’t care anymore. Something had to die so he could unload his pain. As soon as the brig doors slid open, he fired two rounds from his plasma rifle. “Meomi?” His mouth dropped open.

  The projectiles found their mark, hitting her directly in the chest. She didn’t flinch. “Jonas...”

  “I‘m sorry! I didn’t expect...” The body on the ground behind Meomi caught his attention. He moved in for a closer look — Roni. Quickly, Jonas switched into a defensive posture with his gun aimed at Meomi. “You owe me an explanation. What happened here? What happened to you?”

  Meomi waved her hand, sending Jonas’ weapon flying away from him. “Questions are plentiful. Answers are not.”

  Jonas sighed and shook his head. Getting a direct answer didn’t seem likely. He disabled Roni’s force field to check on her body. “Did you kill her?” Her skin was blue and cold as if she’d been dead for some time.

  “No,” Meomi said softly.

  “Then what happened?” He noticed her levitating like she did on Raven’s ship. “Why are you here?”

  “Looking for answers.” She drifted toward Jonas. “Same as you.”

  “Answers to?” He tilted his head.

  “Can you see?” Her eyes fixed on something in the ceiling.

  “See what?” Jonas tried to follow her stare but saw only the gunmetal gray ceiling panels.

  Meomi pressed her lips together. “The guiding hand. Each movement it orchestrates…” Her fingers lifted and moved like a symphony conductor. “… death and destruction. An unfinished song. More notes left to play.”

  Jonas’ eyelids became heavy. In his mind, he could hear a sad melody. He contorted his face in pain and backed away from her. A wave of nausea flooded his senses. “Please stop. What are you doing to me?”

  An unfamiliar tune carried into Jonas’ ears. At first, he thought it came from Meomi, but her mouth was closed, and her lips were still. “It hurts... Please stop!”

  “Her face.” Meomi lowered her hands. The music disappeared. “It changes often. She is formidable. Power without limit.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Mimics were hive-minded creatures. Jonas had been so preoccupied with the soldiers, the Reapers, Wraiths, Kels, and Voidies, that he had forgotten to consider the leader. Wiping out humans, a species with over two hundred billion members across 10,000 exo-planets was no small feat. Someone or something had to be giving the orders. The Guardian killed the body, but the head was still alive. “This conductor, do you have a face and name?”

  “I see the mask.” Meomi’s eyes rolled up. “Not human. A great evil.”

  “So the war isn’t over.” Jonas picked up his gun. “Where is this leader? Take me to it. Let’s finish this.”

  “I cannot.”

  “What? Why?” His nostrils flared.

  A bright aura appeared around Meomi.

  Jonas covered his eyes from the intensity of the light. When he opened them again, Meomi was nowhere to be found.

  “Because humans are prone to letting their emotions dictate their actions,” Roni said as she pushed her body up from the ground.

  “Roni!” Jonas flinched and drew his weapon.

  28

  “What happened to Meomi?” Jonas released the safety on his gun. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  Roni smirked. “Death, life… It’s all relative wouldn’t you say?”

  Jonas clenched his jaw as he fired at her chest, but she disappeared before the projectiles hit their mark.

  “Please, Jonas.” Roni materialized behind Jonas. “You’ve been so quick to trigger lately. As you said, I’m already dead, so why kill me again?”

  “I’m going crazy…” Jonas whispered to himself.

  “I hate to disagree with you, because, let’s be honest, we weren’t the greatest of friends. But, alas, you’re not going crazy.”

  “I’m getting really tired of asking the same questions.” Jonas glared at Roni. “What is going on?”

  “Humans…” Roni sighed. “Always needing things explained to them. Meomi, or the super soldier who used to be Meomi Hana is gone. Replaced by an Aorgarian construct.”

  “I wish I knew what that meant.” Jonas narrowed his eyes. “What are you then?”

  “The same. I am a construct as well. One with Roni’s thoughts and memories.”

  “Why are you in Roni’s body?”

  “Would you rather I be a disembodied voice?” Roni laughed. “The Aorgarians were a crafty species. But not crafty enough to survive their Mimic invasion.” She wagged her finger. “They did, however, design a fail-safe. A plan Z if you will.”

  “The resurrection cube?”

  “Well, yes!” Roni clapped. “That was part of it. But someone had to activate the resurrection cube right? To ensure that would happen, they scattered their genetic essence across the universe, hoping their seed would eventually take root. Did you honestly believe life on Earth came about via happenstance? Have you ever wondered why in this grand galaxy with thousands of star systems and habitable planets, one and only one, species developed?”

  “Wait...” Jonas scrunched his eyebrows. “Are you saying humans originated from Aorgarians?”

  “Mmmm.” She placed a finger to her lips. “Well, evolution had a hand, and unfortunately, it lowered your intelligence more than we would have liked.”

  “Get to your point.”

  “As I was saying earlier about your irrationality. It is one of your greatest weaknesses. Take, for example, how you reacted to the news of your brother.”

  “Nolan?” Jonas lifted his chin. “What about him? Is he still alive?”

  “No, no.” Roni shook her head. “He died some time ago. Mimics transformed him into a Wraith. Little did you know that Meomi already killed him. What Destiny’s Edge gave you was not proof your brother was alive.” She smirked. “It was proof he was dead.”

  “So you… I mean, Roni lied to me.”

  “Yes, and you believed it because you wanted it to be true. She was leading you into a trap, and you couldn’t help but fall into it.”

  Jonas gritted his teeth. His body tensed as heat flushed throughout his body. He was angry at himself more for wanting to believe the lie. Everyone kept using his family and the people he cared about against him, to force him to fight for or against something. Saera, Nolan, Nume, Whisper. Jonas held in the urge to scream. “I need to kill something.”

  “Tsk, tsk, Jonas.” Roni crossed her arms. “If all you seek is vengeance, then you were not listening to what I’ve been telling you.”

  “You’re an Aorgarian construct, are you not? Mimics destroyed your civilization. They wiped your species out of existence. If not for vengeance, then why are you here?”

  “An ending. An end to the suffering. An end to the cycle.”

  “Same thing, different names.” He sighed. “The question is, how do we get to this ending?”

  Roni stared at Jonas then smiled.

  “What?” Jonas narrowed his eyes.

  “I wonder the strength of your resolve.” She tilted her head. “You have come a long way. But there is one last leap to take.”

  “What?” He took a step forward. “Whatever needs to be done, I’ll do. I need this war to end. I don’t want to keep fighting.”

  “You once said you would not hesitate to kill your brother if he turned.”

  “I did.” Jonas nodded.

  “What of your sister?”

  “Saera? What abou
t her? Is she still alive? Is she somehow a part of all of this?”

  “I know the mask the conductor wears.” Roni covered her face with her hands. When she removed them, her face changed to Saera’s likeness.

  “Saera…” Jonas grimaced. “Are you implying my sister is the mastermind behind this? The Mimic Invasion?” He gasped. “Nolan’s death?”

  Roni stayed quiet as if studying Jonas’ reactions.

  “That’s not possible!” He paced as memories of Saera poured into his mind. Jonas remembered her as she was, a vibrant spark composed of pure joy and light, capable of the most wholesome laughter while chasing Shahar butterflies through velour blossoms with the family Shih Tzu in tow. To Jonas, Saera was the purest of hearts, capable of infinite compassion. There was no way Saera could be the ultimate evil behind all the death and destruction. “But… What if…” Jonas rubbed his eyes with his palms.

  “Go on.” Roni nodded.

  Nume hinted that Saera was taken and transformed into an Entrent against her will. Jonas regretted not asking for clarification or more details. “No, no, no…” People have lied to him many times before about his family. “What else do you know? How did you come by this information?”

  “I have access to all of Roni’s memories,” the construct said. “There is no hiding the truth when your mind is exposed. We know through empirical means that there exists a being older than Mimics. This entity renews its life by forcing its way into new vessels. The way by which it accomplishes this is still unknown to us. However, we have a crucial piece of information. We know the face of its current vessel. It’s inside your sister, Saera.”