Well, here is Chapter 6! It was a little while in coming, but here it is! Let me know what you think of it.
The story is almost over! I believe that the next chapter will be the conclusion! Stay tuned!!!
Of course, Crusade, Galen, technomages, etc., were created by JMS. All others are my creation, including the plot of this story. If anything is not technically correct, please bear with me. I don't know everything about technomages, telepaths, their ships, space, etc. LONG LIVE CRUSADE!
A Technomage and a Telepath
By JeanDream
Chapter 6 – Assault
The next day, Cara rose bright and early to visit Retha. She knew that Galen would not be around—for it was his custom to disappear into the wilderness in the early hours of the morning.
"What brings you to see me so early, dear Cara?" Retha asked the telepath as she entered the rider's quarters.
"I've made a decision about being your rider—I want to do it," she said quickly. "I would like to leave soon."
"This is because of the technomage," the Kethiran surmised. "You have had a disagreement . . ."
"That's one way to put it," Cara thought grimly. "I don't want to see him again."
"Running away will not give you peace," Retha pointed out gently, "and I can not heal a pain as deep as yours."
Cara remained stubbornly firm about her decision. "Nevertheless, I want to go with you."
"Very well," Retha responded somewhat sadly. "You realize that when you join with me, you will give up your privacy. I will be able to hear everything you think and feel, and vice versa. You are a very private individual. I have respected that and have kept a mental distance from you after our first encounter."
"I can accept that," the telepath answered seriously. "I'm ready."
"I doubt that," the ship rejoined. "But you will adapt. I do think it wise that we leave soon . . . tomorrow even. Galen has learned all that he can from me . . . he is not ready for what he really needs to learn."
"What do you mean?" Cara asked curiously.
"That's not for you to know . . . yet. You'll find out soon enough."
Cara had taken her leave of the ever-weakening Retha and was headed back to Galen's ship, when a sudden foreign presence pierced her mind.
"PsiCops!" she thought with a sudden terror. "A lot of them!"
She did what she could to fight off their invisible claws. The mental pain wasn't overly intense—the PsiCops were still a distance off. Still, the ex-PsiCop knew from the emotional undercurrent from the Living Ship, that Retha had sensed them as well. Cara also felt that the Kethiran was too weak to fight off a unified attack of P-12 telepaths.
The female telepath sprinted to Galen's ship, her long mahogany hair streaming behind her. She prayed that Galen would be in his ship and he was. Cara found him in the cockpit area.
"PsiCops!" she exclaimed, startling him out of meditation. The sense of their determined, malevolent presence heightened. "They approach quickly."
Galen looked calm but grim. "I should have detected their ships . . ." he muttered, as he closed his eyes and sent a series of commands to his ship. Cara felt the craft begin to ascend. She immediately strapped into the second chair. "We need to get into space. Can Retha make it?" the technomage asked.
Cara's eyes took on a glazed, far-off look. "Yes, but she is defenseless against so many strong telepaths. If she was healthy, she would have the ability to fight them off. . ."
"We will protect her," Galen declared.
The telepath bit her lip nervously as both Retha and Galen's ship broke out of the planet's atmosphere and into the blackness of space. Twelve fighters were approaching fast. Within them, rode the best PsiCops PsiCorps had to offer, exuding grim determination. As they grew closer, Cara heard a voice inside of her mind.
"I trained you – you were one of the best of my students," the telepathic voice dripped with rage. "What did you trade the highest calling a telepath could have for?"
An anguish-laden gasp escaped from Cara's lips as Bester, the strongest of the PsiCops, wrenched the information from her mind brutally.
Galen had heard the telepath's cry, but could not afford to pull his concentration away from the space battle that now ensued. His full attention was to his ship and the defense of the Living Ship. Through closed eyes, he conveyed commands to his craft, which dodged, skipped, and circled, spraying bolts of energy at the enemy along the way. So far, he had disabled four of the fighters. The PsiCops were good pilots, but they could not match a technomage in total communion with his ship.
"So, you have found a grand wonder, out here on the edge of the galaxy," Bester sneered to Cara mentally, "this 'Living Ship' will be a great asset to PsiCorps. We can dissect it and examine it, learning-"
The PsiCop's telepathic rambling was cut off sharply by the surprisingly strong and reassuring psychic presence of none other than Retha, The Living Ship herself. "Be gone with him, that's what I say! He will not enter your mind again, young one."
Cara shakily sent a feeling of thanks to the Kethiran. "You are a Godsend, Retha."
"Yes, and may God save us from this mess," Retha replied. "I have had a sudden surge of strength, but it will not last long."
"I will help you," the telepath poured all of her mental strength into the connection shared between them. Together, the Kethiran and the human telepath made a strong team. Despite many telepathic attempts to break down the pair's defenses, none succeeded.
All the telepathic beings could do was defend themselves from a telepathic attack. The physical defense was left up to the technomage, who was more than up to the challenge.
"Five more," Galen murmured. He had disabled another four of the fighters and was now pursuing another. The technomage had targeted the engines of the spacecrafts only; he killed only as a last case scenario. Most of these telepaths had been brainwashed by the insidious and tyrannical PsiCorps. Galen did not wish to slay dupes. The telepaths would live to see another day, and perhaps the truth—though they would be irritated by the inconvenience of waiting for a recovery ship.
He sprayed two more fighters with damaging fire and abruptly, the fight was down to 3 against 1. However, the last three proved to be the most formidable. They were clearly the most skilled pilots of the PsiCop squadron. Galen's piloting skills were put to their greatest test ever.
One of the fighters suddenly scored a direct hit on the Living Ship. The cry of anguish ripped through Cara's consciousness, and she struggled against a torrent of pain that threatened to overwhelm her. Retha was beginning to lose control, resulting in intense psychic anguish bleeding into the human telepath. Darkness lingered on the edge of Cara's vision, and she was unable to push it away. A few seconds later, the Kethiran was rocked by another blast. The threads that held her psychic awareness together began to unravel rapidly.
"Nooooooo ………" Cara screamed mentally. Her mind began to shut down with Retha's. "Must fight on…………"
Galen had disabled two of the remaining ships, with only the leader left. The leader proved to be nearly unbeatable. The technomage spun and twisted his ship in virtually impossible maneuvers but yet he was unable to put the skilled PsiCop pilot out of commission.
As Retha grew weaker, Cara once again felt a foreign presence. "Your technomage is a skilled pilot. He may beat me in this battle, but he will not keep the prize. If PsiCorps can not have your 'Living Ship,' then no one will." Bester's malevolent voice burned through Cara's mind like a sizzling brand.
He then commenced to fire repeatedly upon the Living Ship.
Agony streamed from Retha's mind to Cara's. The telepath's voice seemed to join with the Kethiran's inaudible one as she screamed verbally, "Noooooooooooooooooo!" A force seemed to build inside of them like a doomsday machine - a last ditch effort. With the very last of their joint strength, the telepathic ship and human woman hurled Bester's fighter away, into the depths of space, billions of kilometers away.
The sudden impact of the force disabled the PsiCop's fighter. Filled with a white-hot rage, he keyed in his request for recovery and began the annoying wait with his fellow PsiCops.
A sudden silence had ensued back upon Galen's ship. The technomage rose from his seat and went to help Cara out of hers.
"Did you do that?" he asked the glassy-eyed telepath as he unstrapped her harness.
The telepath nodded as she stood up. "Yes-Retha," her voice choked off as her knees buckled. Galen barely managed to catch Cara before she fell to the hard deck. Gently, he lowered the beautiful telepath to the floor, cradling her upper body in his arms. Alarmed, he noticed a few drops of blood dripped from her mouth.
"Cara," he beckoned to the unconscious woman. He checked her vital signs with his visual technological implants. Her blood pressure and pulse had fallen to dangerous levels, and her mental activity seemed to be shutting down.
"Cara, don't leave me," he whispered to her fiercely, his blue eyes suddenly filling with unexpected tears. He tenderly brushed back the telepath's dark hair from her face. "I love you."
Then the technomage did something he had not done for a long time. He prayed.