Chapter Nine: At the Last Second, I…
Lili returned several hours later with Geris. At the entrance, they went their separate ways. She ran to the lab to find Vorjak sitting alone with his face buried in his hands.
"Vorjak, we need to talk," Lili said firmly.
The Jaridian keeled over and started groaning. Lili tried to resist, but a part of her still loved him, she realized. She tried to control her body, but somehow she found herself next to him holding him close.
"There's nothing left, Lillian," he told her. "You taught me to hope again, and I've betrayed you by losing it. You are our last resort."
"Oh, Vorjak," Lili whispered.
She never even heard the doors slam.
The alarms blared all throughout the Citadel when the attack commenced. The Taelons had secretly taken over the fighters during the recall. Ta'lay and four other Taelons remained to care for the wounded. Link and Liam led the group of humans when the attack commenced. The Jaridian rebel spies sealed all exits from the building before any of the generals could get out. Geris and Balvak hauled them into their own meeting room and kept them there with the peace corps. But one of the generals was missing. Da'an and Renee had journeyed back to the building well before the twenty-four-hour waiting period had ceased however, and were now in search of Vorjak. Renee took the top half of the building while Da'an took the bottom half. She had just reached the seventh floor when Lili's words hit her. She ran up the stairs as fast as she could through the deserted building and came to a dark, sealed off area. Da'an used her pistol to short out the shields and slowly walked inside.
Vorjak was with three other scientists, smiling. "Come in Da'an. I was just expecting you."
"It is over, Vorjak. You are to accompany me to the council room," Da'an told him.
"But don't you see, Da'an?" Vorjak said in a voice full of ecstasy. "We've done it."
"Done what?"
"We have created the perfect mother for the Jaridian solution," Vorjak said. "All this time it was right in front of us. We just had to deconstruct her, modify her DNA, and reconstruct her with the changes. We have a womb that will create the perfect Jaridian-human hybrid, free of the metabolical plague that is killing our people."
"What are you talking about?"
"When I was named as a high council member, I was placed in charge of a project. We were to create the perfect Jaridian-human hybrid," Vorjak explained, turning on the lights to display the whole of the room.
At the center were several large, green, crystallized tubes carrying unborn fetuses and strange, alien organs. In the back, there were a number of black cribs that had been sealed with what Da'an surmised to be dead Jaridian children. To the right were artificial wombs designed to carry the children as they developed. To the left were surgeon's tables where the unborn fetuses were removed from the mother's womb and put into the artificial womb.
"We started by using Jaridian females who volunteered," Vorjak said in a sick sense of glee. "Too many of them began to die, however, due to their fast metabolisms. The babies died unborn inside of them."
Da'an blushed. "Then those organs in the tubes…"
"Belong to the ones who died, yes," Vorjak said. "It was essential that we preserve and analyze the parts to continue. Then, one of our spies returned to us from your capture, telling us about humans and how similar we were to them. The high council immediately struck an alliance with Ronald Sandoval to send us human females. That was when I met Lili. She was supposed to be our savior. When she birthed Ariel…I thought that all our problems were solved. Instead, Ariel's metabolism was no different than ours. She was too Jaridian and not human enough. We had to find a new solution."
"Da'an…can you hear me?" a voice on the radio asked.
"After many attempts, we perfected the Jaridian-human hybrid DNA formula, but the fetuses were still dying in their mother's wombs, taking the mothers with them. We tried using artificial wombs, but we could never get the conditions just right. We were at our last leg when Lili came to me. She rekindled my hope once again, and we have finally succeeded."
"This is disgusting," Da'an shuddered.
"Disgusting?" Vorjak laughed. "Da'an, we have performed a dream tonight. In mere hours, we have done what it took years to accomplish. We have created the perfect Jaridian-human mother for the perfect hybrid—"
"Stop saying 'perfect,'" Da'an snapped. "This is not perfection. This is abomination. You are obsessed and insane. This is not science. This is playing with people's lives. This is playing God."
"Da'an, please respond."
"Don't judge her, Da'an," Vorjak said. "Don't judge her until you see her."
"I do not want to see her!" Da'an shot back. "I do not want to see anymore of this madness. I am taking you in and shutting this place down."
"You and I are not so unalike, Da'an," Vorjak said. "It is very fitting that you see her. When you do, you will understand."
Da'an opened her channel to Renee's frequency in an instinctual reaction. "I need immediate assistance in lab three on the thirtieth floor."
The three scientists pulled a stretcher in front of Da'an with a disgustingly miserable creature groaning in pain. A small, black hospital gown had been placed over its body in a vain attempt to clothe the creature. Da'an could still discern the features from the outline it left under the thin cloth and from the exposed parts. Its body was writhed with scales like a Jaridian and misshaped human flesh. The face could barely be called human or Jaridian, and its belly was infected with surgical scars and scales. It was completely disproportioned with an abnormally large belly, arms that had been shortened, and legs unequal in length. It appeared that the scientists' only focus had been on the womb. It groaned in unbelievable pain and turned on its stomach. That was when it stared at Da'an. The miserable creature appeared to recognize Da'an immediately. Da'an probably would have turned away in disgust, but she was stuck on those eyes. Where did she know those eyes?
"Da'an," it croaked weakly.
Da'an felt her body freeze in terror. It couldn't be! It was not possible! They had just talked! Da'an could not find it in her heart to say anything. It was only pure instinct that caused her to scream.
The Taelons were doing well in the air, but humans were still going down too quickly. The air support just wasn't enough to stop the resistance.
"We can't take much more of this!" a human ground soldier told Mi'en on the comm.
"Just hold out a little longer," Mi'en said. "The rebel reinforcements are almost here."
"We can't!" the man cried.
"There's too many of them!" a Taelon cried.
Suddenly, a barrage of Taelon warships and fighters suddenly rained from the sky. They surrounded the facility and began destroying the Jaridian soldiers.
"Sorry we're late!" a young male's voice cried. "At least we didn't miss the party."
"Tay'jay!" cried Mi'en. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, Da'an sent a messenger to me a couple of days ago," Tay'jay said. "She said you could use some help."
"Thank Da'an everyone," Mi'en said humorously over the communicator.
"All right!" a human yelled.
"Let's do this!" Liam cried.
With the Espelon fighters, there was no trouble forcing the soldiers back before the rebels arrived. Soon the battle would be over, but beforehand, Tay'jay opened a hail to Liam's frequency.
"Liam Kincaid here."
"So you're the crazy son-of-a-bitch who manipulated my sister against her own species," Tay'jay said. "I imagined you'd sound older."
"Same to you. Are you Tay'jay Amo'qui?"
"You said it. Now where's my sister?"
"She's helping Renee look for a runaway Jaridian general," Liam said. "I'll contact Renee."
"Liam!" Renee's voice cried. "Get your ass up here now! Da'an opened her channel and called for assistance, and then I heard a scream!"
"What the hell's going on down there?" Tay'jay asked.
"I'm on my way, Renee," Liam said, ignoring Tay'jay's question. He replaced his radio with his tracker and ran to converge on Da'an's signal.
Da'an felt every part of her body churn as she broke into hard sobs. "You…You…and your infernal scientists!"
"Why are you getting so upset, Da'an?" Vorjak said with a maniacal smile. "After all, isn't this what you wanted? Didn't you want her to suffer?"
"No. No," Da'an whimpered. "I never wanted…"
"Science has given you what you always wanted Da'an," Vorjak said. "Science has given us both what we always desired. You hated her. You couldn't stand her. You wanted her to suffer for what she did to you. I wanted her to birth our Jaridian solution. It was why I fell in love with her."
"You…fell in love with her…for her womb!" Da'an wheezed. She could barely breathe the pain was so immense.
"She looked the most beautiful to me when she carried our child. All that work, all that effort for a beautiful little Jaridian solution—all of it wasted because of you!"
"Shut…up," Da'an panted.
"With nowhere else to turn, science always finds a solution," Vorjak said. "Is that not what you and your species believe? Pure logic can solve any problem. The method of producing a child is broken down into a mere scientific formula. That's what you did when you tried creating a Taelon-human hybrid. You broke producing a Taelon-human hybrid down to its essential ingredients: DNA, a fetus, and a womb. Then, grew the children in human wombs and harvested the fetuses using interdimensional technology. To hell with the consequences inflicted on the human women. This is no different than what you did to countless human women. The only difference is that we were dignified enough to risk ourselves before innocent women of another species. You did what you did for survival. That was all you cared about. You recklessly destroyed human lives for survival, and now you have exploited your best friend."
"I am not like you," Da'an whimpered with her head buried in her hands.
"Face it, Da'an. You are a disease. You infect and destroy everything you touch. You infected my daughter, you've destroyed every friend you ever had—in fact, I don't know if you've ever done one good thing for one person."
Liam and Renee had been running up and down stairs to find the lab room and Da'an. Both were panting hard from the long trek.
"Da'an!" Liam panted. "Where's—Oh my God! Is that…?"
Renee took one look at what was supposed to be Lili and felt her stomach turn upside down. She was coughing, gagging, covering her mouth—doing anything she could to keep from vomiting.
"Lili!" Da'an squeaked.
"What did you do to her?" Liam asked Vorjak instinctively pointing his gun at him.
"I've made her beautiful," Vorjak said. "Don't you see it? Lili will be the savior of our species. With her womb, we will repopulate the Jaridian species with a race of new and improved Jaridian soldiers. Our mothers will be strong enough to maintain their metabolism for their children. This is a revolution, Da'an! A cleansing!"
"No!" Da'an cried. The tanks in the lab room ignited in flames, the surgeon's tables crumbled from beneath their legs and were tossed into the back of the room. The artificial wombs exploded into flames and organic debris. The cribs carrying dead babies smashed into the burning tanks.
Liam grabbed Da'an before she could collapse from the pain. The flames subsided and the explosions stopped. The lab technicians attempted to run, but Renee stopped them by holding a grenade in front of them. "Do…not…move!" she panted very slowly with a tremble of rage and disgust.
"Why, Vorjak?" Liam asked tonelessly. "She was your wife. She loved you and gave you a beautiful daughter."
"Don't you see?" Vorjak said. "That's precisely why I did it. I did it because I loved her. She was the one who taught me to hope, but I lost it. So I modified her so that I could hope again. She gave me back my hope and I lost it, and now I have it back again. That's what makes you and me so much alike Da'an. When we lose our hope, we modify the ones we love so that we can hope again. You modified humanity in your Taelon experiments to bring hope to your species. But when that didn't work, you went so far as to modify yourself. Now, you want to modify your entire species just to hope again. You and I will go through any lengths to hope, even if we must sacrifice the one who does."
"You're wrong!" Da'an outburst. "You are dead wrong! I am nothing like you! You sadistic, conniving, insane megalomaniac!" A flame appeared from Da'an's hand and was ready to incinerate Vorjak when Liam forced it down.
"Don't do it, Da'an," Liam said, struggling to restrain his companion. "That's what he wants." Liam had brought asked for four soldiers to volunteer to help him. The fighting outside delayed their arrival, but they came just in time to see Da'an's enflamed hand. One of the humans gagged when he saw Lili, turned around, and vomited. Liam grabbed the grinning Vorjak and forced him into the other three. "Cuff him! And tape his hands together!"
One of the Jaridians did better and put a gun to his head. When the soldier recovered, the rest held the technicians at gunpoint as well.
Da'an reached out and took Lili's deformed hand. "Oh Lili. I'm so sorry."
"I'm…sorry too," Lili croaked weakly.
Da'an could feel her pain as she wheezed in pain.
"It's all right, Da'an," she told her. "I want…to die."
Da'an pulled out a gun and held it over Lili's head.
Renee turned her head to keep from looking. Even after all she had seen as a resistance fighter, this was too much for her to bear. Liam felt his stomach churn and had to turn away as well. He couldn't watch his friend kill one equally as special to him.
Da'an tried to squeeze the trigger, but she found herself frozen in fear and pain. Even though she wanted to help her, Da'an was too weak to pull the trigger. "I can't," she wept. "I can't do it."
Liam had to clog his tear ducts with his fingers to summon the courage to turn around and say what he knew Da'an needed to hear. "It's all right, Da'an," Liam said placing his hands over her shoulders. "You don't have to. I'll do it."
Da'an dropped the gun, and Liam pulled out his own. She dropped to her knees and stared into Lili's eyes. She realized that Lili was staring right at her. There was a gun pointed at her head, and all she was looking at was Da'an. All she could see was Da'an! Da'an could feel her thoughts and her emotions in that last moment. She understood then that only she could rid Lili of her pain. Only she was meant to free Lili from her pain.
Liam was only seconds away from pulling the trigger.
"Da'an, take…c-care…of my daughter," Lili told her.
"Look away Da'an," Liam said. "You too, Lili."
But Da'an leapt to her feet and grabbed the pistol. After one short and tearful look, she began firing round after round into her friend. There was not one person in the room who did not wince after each shot. Renee looked up to heaven in a vain attempt to find comfort. Liam was so stunned and shocked that he became paralyzed. All the feeling in his body and all movement ceased as he watched Da'an fire round after round into the thing that had once been his friend. Even after the carcass stopped moving, she fired. Even after the gun ran out of charges, she fired.
All the feeling came back to Liam in the form of a short breath. He turned his head to Da'an's hands to see she was just as stunned as he was. He slowly reached and pulled the gun from her hands. They were still in a position to fire, and Lili's blood had stained her arms and face. There was a long moment of silence as they all watched the corpse, which had been dismembered beyond recognition, and Da'an, trying to discern some sort of feeling or action out of this tragedy. The silence was broken by the sound of an empty pistol dropping and the muffled sounds of Da'an crying in Liam's arms.
Epilogue: …Cry
The civil war ended four hours later. A funeral procession was held for Lili two days later where her body was cremated. Vorjak was court-martialed and sentenced to die, but they all knew whatever death he received was too good for him and that it would not be received soon enough. Da'an took the baby and Lili's ashes back to Earth, where a second, private funeral procession was held. Only fourteen people went, Da'an and Liam included. Renee, Street, and Link watched the scattering of Lili's ashes into the winds from afar. Tay'jay's Espelons moved into the ANA headquarters. The number of aliens on the side of the humans was now 1200.
At Lili's funeral on Earth, Da'an watched with Ariel cradled in her arms with absolutely no emotion. The ones by her side said she looked like she was waiting for someone or something. Long after the minister left with the urn, the gun salute, and Lili's loved ones left, Da'an and Ariel stood together, and they both looked at each other.
And they both began to cry.
The End