Talyn's cannon fire bursts the collared Leviathan, creating a spherical volley of shrapnel that tears into the armed vessels on either side. One of the crippled ships returns fire and Talyn reels, sending Soraya and the dead resistance fighters sliding across the floor, and forcing me to clutch a console for support. The other ship spins out of control, its engines destroyed by a piece of the Leviathan. Choosing power over precision, Talyn fires on them both with his main cannon, reducing them to shards.
Soraya struggles to her feet and moves toward the front view screen. "Captain Crais, did you...?"
"This is all Talyn's work. I would have aimed for the collar, then at least attempted to cripple the weaponry on the other two ships before destroying them."
"Then he must have heard me about firing on the Leviathan. I didn't think he did. He still doesn't feel like he's listening." She reaches behind her head and fingers the transponder, frowning.
"No, it was his tactical programming. Instead of ignoring the unarmed vessel as I predicted, he attacked it, knowing that the shrapnel would hit the ships on either side. He sacrificed the Leviathan to gain an advantage."
"Impressive. Now hand over the transponder." Terryl's voice comes from behind me, and from the sneering tone I can tell he is armed, even before I turn to see the pulse pistol aimed at me.
The man wears a pressure suit and carries the helmet under one arm. He steps toward me and slips on the blood of his own men, falling forward. I lunge forward and reach for the arm holding the pistol, but he smashes the helmet into my skull and for a moment I am blinded by a lightening bolt of pain. When my sight clears, Terryl has taken a step back and now stands swinging the pulse pistol to aim first at me, then at Soraya.
"Hand it over. And don't even think about disabling it like your trelk did with the first one." He drops the helmet and holds out a hand.
I nod in resignation. "Soraya, do as he says."
"But--" she begins.
"Just do as he says!" I shout.
Though Terryl has the pulse pistol aimed at my chest, the fantasy that flickers through my mind involves closing my hands around Soraya's throat. Everyone aboard the three vessels, including the Ancient, is dead because Talyn refused to obey my orders, and now I may lose my own life because of adolescent idiocy.
"I'd rather frelling die than hand Talyn over to him," Soraya grumbles as she removes the transponder. "But I'm doing this for you, Captain Crais. Catch!" She tosses the transponder in Terryl's general direction. He makes no move to catch it, and it lands on the floor, where it slides in a pool of blood.
Terryl shakes his head. "Nice try. Pick it up and put it in my hand, trelk. No sudden movements."
She looks to me as if for guidance and I nod vigorously. "Yes, Soraya! Just give it to him!"
She edges forward, hands raised in surrender, until she reaches the transponder. Wincing at the blood, she bends and picks up the device, holding it at arms length. She drops it into Terryl's palm and takes a step back.
Still aiming the pulse pistol, he raises the transponder to the back of his neck. Apparently, he has removed the other, believing it to be defective. He grins when he feels the touch of Talyn's mind, but then his eyes go wide with horror and he crumples to the floor, screaming.
I kneel beside him, seize his hand, and peel his fingers away from the pulse pistol. As Terryl continues to writhe and howl, I feel a sudden spray of warm fluid on my face. A sizzling hole has appeared in Terryl's abdomen, and when I look up, I see Soraya holding a pulse rifle and staring in morbid fascination. Terryl's eyes, glazed with agony, meet hers, and her mouth twists into a smirk. The trembling merchant's daughter I found on Kateri is gone, replaced by a hazmot of vengeance that wears her face.
I remove the transponder and then use the pulse pistol on Terryl's head, ending Soraya's reverie. She drops her weapon, kneels down beside me, and wrests the Peacekeeper uniform jacket from Terryl's body. She holds it up as if debating whether to put it on. The thrill of retribution outweighs the smell of blood and she shrugs into it.
I take hold of her arm and stand, pulling her up with me. We leave a trail of bloody boot prints as we make our way to the edge of the command deck. Once we are away from the carnage, I lean against the wall and pull the transponder from my pocket. I know Talyn recognized the nature of the debris that surrounded us when we came out of starburst, and I wonder if it is safe to link with him, even for me.
"He'll want to join the resistance now." Soraya puts her back to the wall and slides down until she is sitting on the floor, her legs stretched in front of her. "When we came here, those were pieces of Kateri. The Peacekeepers killed her. She was a frelling transport! She was harmless, and they killed her, just like they killed my father. He wasn't a soldier. He was just trying to take the Ancient back to its family."
"That explains Terryl's jacket. You're joining the resistance, I take it?"
She nods. "They aren't all like Terryl. Pelak isn't. And the Peacekeepers are monsters. That's why you and Talyn should join us."
"Be careful when you fight monsters, Soraya, lest you become one." I reach over and finger the sleeve of her newly acquired jacket. "I have already seen you take what you want and kill what you don't."
"I'll kill what needs killing and take what I need." She frowns and tilts her head slightly as she scans my face. "Surely you see the difference?"
I shrug. "I never called myself a scholar, so I won't bother debating minutia. Nor will I allow Talyn to be used as a weapon. He deserves to be something more."
"I see." She stands up and crosses her arms over her chest. "Will you at least let me into the docking bay so I can see Pelak? You are taking them back to the relay station, aren't you?"
I am half tempted to leave them adrift among the wreckage of Leviathans and armed vessels, but I have seen my share of death today. I nod.
She steps in front of me and stands on her toes to brush her lips against mine before saying, "Tell Talyn goodbye for me."
"I will, Soraya."
She swallows hard, as if about to say something that could bring her to tears. "It's going to be 'Kateri'. That's my nom de guerre, if you ever change your mind and want to find me."
As I watch her leave command, I wonder if she will someday be able to quiet her conscience simply by shedding the name she has taken. Will her sleep be riddled with dreams of those who died by her hand, or will those memories belong to someone named "Kateri", someone for whom the future Soraya takes no responsibility? For now, I believe she will be the worst kind of vigilante, driven both by personal revenge and by self-righteous philosophy. Many acts of evil are committed to avenge good men, but the greatest evils are done in the name of the greater good.
I stand in front of the view screen, staring at the wreckage. I wonder which pieces of floating detritus were part of the offspring and immediately bury that thought. If I can manage to hide it from him, Talyn will never know the full extent of the tragedy. Bracing myself for the force of Talyn's grief and anger, I put in the transponder. Even fully prepared for the emotional onslaught, I nearly fall to my knees.
You ordered her to starburst so she could scan for the Ancient! Talyn screams.
"Kateri hid her fuel levels from me. I could not have ordered her to her death, not after being bonded with her."
His thoughts blast into my mind in a whirlwind of interrogation, seeking the truth. Memories fly like sheets of parchment, and I cannot keep them in place, let alone hold on to any single one. When he finds my memory of being shown the offspring, his mind goes dark for a tenth arn and I begin to wonder if he has somehow severed our link.
The thought that breaks the silence is full of quiet despair. It would have been like me.
"What?"
Kateri's offspring. I have a record of all plans from the hybrid project. Kateri found it when we exchanged information. You planned it so hybrids' offspring would be born with weapons.
"Talyn, I--"
It would have been too dangerous. The Peacekeepers could have captured it and bred a fleet with it.
"And if not, then the resistance could have used it the same way," I agree. "It would have lived as either a fugitive or a weapon. I've thought of that. I still regret what happened to Kateri and the offspring."
Some things are better off not being.
To hear him say that breaks my heart. Talyn is my creation, my expression, my legacy. My existence has come to serve a twofold purpose-- keeping him safe, and keeping others safe from him. He is everything to me, but in spite of that, he is right.
I lean on one of the consoles, staring out the view screen into the abyss, and feeling the emptiness stare back into me. Perhaps both of us are better off not being.