Chapter 18
ZARA
The first blow came so fast I almost missed it.
Dorek swung his weapon at the nearest Kythran again, and this time there was no stopping him. The elderly being crumpled under the impact, his thin cry of pain cutting through the chamber like a blade.
“Stop!” Torven bellowed, but his voice was lost in the sudden eruption of violence.
The D’tran surged forward as a unit, their collective rage finally finding an outlet.
Vikkat didn’t even try to stop them, now.
His eyes were as red as the blood spilling on the floor.
Weapons swung, fists flew, and the Kythrans scattered like frightened animals, scrambling toward the walls with their hands raised in that universal gesture of surrender that no one was respecting.
Torven intercepted one D’tran who had surged toward an already injured Kythran and was locked with him as they pitted strength against strength.
One of the Kythrans was shouting something, his voice high and panicked. My translator caught it automatically. “We tried to fix it! We’ve spent our entire lives trying!”
“You fools! They tried to fix it,” I translated desperately, grabbing at Vikkat’s arm. “They’ve been trying their whole lives—”
“Lies!” Another D’tran warrior kicked over a pile of data cubes, sending them scattering across the floor. “Sky-stealer lies!”
A Kythran dove for one of the intact cubes, trying to protect it, and got a boot to the ribs for his trouble. He curled up on the ground, wheezing, while another D’tran raised their weapon.
“No!” Torven flung aside the D’tran he was fighting with, but there were too many of them and not enough of us.
The chamber descended into chaos. Ancient technology became projectiles—circuit boards flew through the air, power cells were crushed underfoot, delicate instruments that might have held answers were smashed against the stone walls.
The Kythrans weren’t fighting back. They were just trying to survive, to protect what little they had left.
One of them was speaking rapidly, desperately, and I caught fragments through my translator. “The central nexus… If we could reach it… Together we might…”
“They’re saying if we work together, if we reach the central nexus—” I shouted the translation over the din.
“No working with sky-stealers!” Dorek roared. “No mercy for those who destroyed our world!”
A Kythran grabbed a piece of broken equipment and swung it at a D’tran in self-defense. It was a weak blow, barely connecting, but it was enough to send the D’tran into a fury. He raised his energy weapon, the charge building with a high-pitched whine that I felt in my teeth.
“Don’t!” I started toward them, but someone’s elbow caught me in the ribs, driving the air from my lungs.
I stumbled backward and felt something crunch under my boot. My scanner. The modified atmospheric scanner I’d altered to get us here was in pieces.
“No, no, no.” I dropped to my knees, trying to gather the fragments, but a D’tran warrior stepped on it, grinding the delicate circuits into powder. “Stop! You’re destroying—”
Nobody was listening. The violence was spreading, intensifying. A Kythran was bleeding from a head wound. Another was trying to shield the eldest of their group, who’d collapsed against the wall. The water condenser sparked and died as a D’tran’s weapon discharge went wide.
Through it all, I could hear the Kythrans pleading. My translator kept feeding me their words, a desperate litany that made my chest ache.
“We never wanted this.”
“Our ancestors were wrong.”
“Help us make it right.”
“Please, we’re trying to help.”
But no one could hear them except me. And I was just one human scientist in a cave full of warriors who’d been waiting generations for this moment of revenge.
I saw Torven trying to reach Vikkat, trying to get him to restore order, but Vikkat himself looked torn between rational thought and the same rage that had consumed his warriors. His eyes remained as red as the rest, his face flushed with generations of suffering demanding payment.
A Kythran scrambled past me, clutching something to his chest. Data cubes. He was trying to save the data cubes. A D’tran caught him by the arm and wrenched the cubes away, hurling them against the wall, where they shattered.
“Those could have had answers!” I screamed, but my voice was nothing against the roar of violence.
Then I saw Dorek turn toward me.
His eyes were wild, his weapon still charged and raised. For a moment, I didn’t understand what was happening. Then I saw the fury in his expression, the way he was looking at me like I was just another enemy.
“Star-cousin corruption,” he snarled. “You brought bad fortune. You and your strange mate.”
The weapon discharged.
Time just slowed down. I saw the energy bolt coming, saw the air shimmer with deadly heat, saw my death approaching with the clinical detachment of someone who’d already accepted it.
Then Torven was there.
He slammed into me from the side, his body a shield between me and the blast. The impact threw us both to the ground, and I heard him grunt in pain as the energy seared across his back and shoulder.
“No!” The word tore from my throat as I scrambled to push him off me, to see the damage. His shirt was burned through, the skin beneath blackened and smoking. The smell of scorched flesh made my stomach heave. “No, no, no—Torven!”
His face was gray beneath the shifting colors of his skin, his breathing labored. “I’m okay,” he managed. “I’m—”
But he wasn’t okay. I could see that. The blast had weakened him, stealing the strength he needed to protect us. Blood seeped through the burned fabric of his shirt.
Something inside me snapped.
I surged to my feet, throwing my arms wide, and screamed with everything I had. “STOP!”
The violence didn’t stop immediately. But my voice—raw and desperate and furious—cut through enough of the chaos that some of the D’tran paused.
“STOP THIS!” I screamed again. Tears were streaming down my face, hot and angry. “Look at what you’re doing! Look at yourselves!”
More warriors stopped, turning to stare at me. Even Dorek lowered his weapon slightly, shock crossing his features.
“You call yourselves warriors?” My voice was shaking but I didn’t care.
“You call yourselves honorable? You’re beating old beings who can’t even stand properly.
You’re destroying the very technology that might save you.
And you—” I pointed at Dorek with a trembling hand.
“You just shot an unarmed male who was trying to protect his mate.”
“He is corrupted,” Dorek said, but there was uncertainty in his voice now.
“He’s more honorable than any of you,” I shouted back. “He stood between you and defenseless beings. He took a blast meant for me. That’s not corruption—that’s courage. That’s what real warriors do. They protect those who can’t protect themselves. They don’t murder the helpless.”
I turned to take in all of them, every red-eyed, rage-flushed warrior in that chamber.
“These Kythrans didn’t destroy your world.
Their ancestors did. Do you understand that?
None of these beings were even alive when those decisions were made.
They’re victims too. They’ve spent their entire lives trapped in these caves—hiding from you—while trying to fix what their ancestors broke, and you’re killing them for it. ”
Vikkat was staring at me now, and I saw something shifting in his expression. The red in his eyes was fading, replaced by what looked like some actual, rational thought.
“You want someone to blame?” I continued, my voice breaking.
“Blame the systems. Blame the hubris of ancient engineers who thought they could control nature to control a planet. Blame the autonomous networks that evolved beyond anyone’s ability to manage.
But don’t blame these six old beings who are just as trapped as you are.
“If you kill them,” I said more quietly, “you kill your only chance of ever fixing this. Because we need them. We need their knowledge, their understanding of the systems, their willingness to help. And if you murder them out of rage and vengeance, then you’re no better than the ancestors who built those towers in the first place. ”
The silence that followed was thick and suffocating.
Vikkat was the first to move. He lowered his weapon completely, his shoulders sagging. “Enough,” he said quietly. Then louder, with command behind it: “Enough! Warriors, stand down!”
Slowly, reluctantly, the other D’tran lowered their weapons. The red in their eyes began to fade, replaced by other colors—blues and grays and browns.
Behind them, the Kythrans were picking themselves up, helping each other, tending to their injured. One of them approached slowly, holding something in his trembling hands. “Please. For your injured male. It will help.”
The Kythran was offering a small container, its contents glowing faintly in the red light. He opened it to reveal a thick, viscous substance that looked almost like liquid crystal.
“What is it?” I asked in their language.
“Ancient medicine. From before the towers. It heals, sustains, restores.” He hesitated. “From large sentient beings that hold themselves to the ground by thick stalks. Most departed many cycles ago, but some remain. Our grandmothers made concentrated ointments and preserved a small supply.”
My breath caught. What they described sounded a lot like Solas, and if this substance was lami, preserved from before the catastrophe, it could save Torven. I took the container carefully and knelt beside my mate, who was on the ground, his face tight with pain.
“Hold still,” I said, my hands shaking as I scooped a small amount of the substance onto my fingers. It felt warm, almost alive. “The Kythrans say this will help.”
“Zara—” he started.
“Don’t argue with me right now,” I said, my voice breaking. “Just…just let me help you.”