Onidus 26
Solara is among my kind. I remind myself that she is safer with us than she is unguarded on Earth. But there, she didn’t walk straight into battle as a field medic.
Coms are down with the cities. Neb ships are already here. We are too late. I know it as much as I hear the confused reports of other soldiers who watch brother ships disappear. And then Solara’s team with Fiasan comes through with a discovery about Leosantian shielding. Solara dismantled theirs.
Pride stirs in me. My mate is smart. And last I heard, she is still alive.
Viriden glances at me from beside the portal controls. His team of telekinetic Pyrons has helped us maneuver the field adapter ring over the portal. We wait now for the generators as they spool up and bring the portal and the dimensional collider field online.
I followed the plans of the Delsfein. I hope they were right.
The portal ignites a swirling gray with white sparks. It crackles and spirals like clouds draining into an abyss, the same one that swallowed them years ago. The field we’ve overlaid with the portal hums to life in a gold-green sheen.
I wish Solara was with us to know if they speak. But I step in front of the device I’ve built and hope they can sense us, find the opening wherever they are in their alternate realm. “We fight, this night and sacrifice, with flame and fury and might and light.”
The portal shifts. Smoke parts, and a thin gray humanoid steps through. They stop outside, look down at their hands and arms, pick up their feet, and then look up at me.
I look them over, avoid their middle where their reproductive systems are visible, and give them a nod.
More step through, joining us one at a time until the cavern in our secret portal facility is filled with Delsfein. Viriden directs his team to get them clothes and armor, while I monitor those who enter from beside the portal.
“I thought there were only a few left,” Ison Enrali remarks as he telekinetically hands out clothing.
A Delsfein in fresh clothes and armor stops at my side. Her solid black eyes blink at him. “In the other realm, we are not restricted to physical forms. We can reproduce with simple thoughts, joining energy. We are in the thousands, now.”
She turns to me. “Where is Solara, the one who protects the light?”
I remember her now, because I remember her voice. “Elder Tescha… She was sent with a different crew as a medic.”
The hairless female tilts her head. “Onidus… You should not have let her out of your sight. I told her to stay with you and for you to stay with her.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Did you not feel it?” she asks. “You may not take orders well, but your Vibrance is deeply intertwined with the universe, especially now. I had hoped that would be enough to remind you of what I told you two before we fled our homeworld.”
Unease makes me shift between my boots. “I thought my job was here. This is what you asked of me. Compelled me to do.”
She looks skyward even though we are inside. Closing her eyes, she hums a sad note. “You are too late. They have taken her. She is on a Neb ship headed for…”
My heart beats faster. The Nebs have Solara?
“Gevarron,” she finishes.
“The fringe world?” Ison Enrali asks. “What would they want with it?”
“They still need planets for food and for manufacturing. They need a place where they can build a portal such as this so they may invade our spiritual realm. What can your souls power?” she asks.
I think of ION. “Ships.”
She takes a rifle, loads it, racks in a shot, and switches on the safety. “Do you want the Vibrance of your kind chained to an enemy husk, sent to kill their own? Or worse, a portal that gives them access to the spiritual realm we come from to torture all species at their whim?”
“No.” I’m already searching for the fastest way out of the packed cave.
Ison Enrali squints at her like he doesn’t believe she’s on our side. “How did they take your people down?”
She slides her glare to him. “We were peaceable people, wanting only to help this universe. We were kind to the wrong species. We were not ready for their evil spirits. Now we are…what would Solara’s people say?”
“Pissed?” I offer.
A corner of her mouth curls. “Pissed. Till Echelon, my friends.”
She slings the rifle over her shoulder, grabs a handgun, extra magazines for both, and hikes up the tunnel toward the ships coming in to take the Delsfein to the cities still fighting.
I search the cavern for a signal and get ION on my coms.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“ION, I need you. Solara has been taken by the Nebs to a world called Gevarron.”
“On my way.”
I squeeze through the crowd toward the exit when Viriden stops me. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” He grabs me by my sleeve and takes me to a corner of the cave, where he taps a screen in the wall. “We are going to get Solara back.”
“You are?” I ask.
“I overheard. And yes. Chris is back in orbit. He heard as well.”
A platform rises beneath us, carrying us toward the surface. At the top, Viriden lowers the ramp of his ship. “I called in a few of your friends.”
Ryz jumps out of a passing transport. The moment he’s free, it hyperjets back across the planet, disappearing in a flash.
“Got here as fast as we could,” Ulian says, hustling up from another. “Gairol has called ships to head to Gevarron to reclaim souls.”
“Souls?” I ask.
“Nebs ripped them out of everyone who didn’t make it underground behind the shield,” Ryz says. “Every city. They sent in the screaming spirits. Had a few still in my region. Wispy shadowy things from their world that drift around, wailing at everyone.” He shivers. “Fucking hate those things.”
Viriden leads us up the ramp of his ship as Ember Elsion joins us. He throws himself in a seat and belts in as we sit down.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Going with my crew, he says, out of breath. “Caught the first transport over here when word came through from Fiasan that Solara was taken. Figured we had a mission.”
“You’re an Ember,” Ryz says as Viriden lifts his ship off the ground and closes the ramp.
Elsion clutches his harness as the ship banks. “Solara is a friend and Onidus’ Bond. And she risked everything to save Oriclen’s life. I’m going.”
“Oriclen?” Ulian asks.
“Frag grenade got him.”
I slump into the co-pilot’s seat. “Any word on Kassian?”
No one has anything to offer.
ION, disregard. Viriden is taking us. Please remain with Tachyon.
“Understood,” he says in my ear.
Viriden taps through his screens. “Kassian is…en route on a Striker from another region. Most of the Nebulous vessels are airborne and appear to be heading for Gevarron. ETA fifteen minutes. Belts please. I’m going to make sure we’re right on their asses.”
I buckle in as Viriden spools up his engines, and we race across space, faster with every second. His ship is a prime fighter and hums with perfectly synced engines.
“May I speak freely?” Ryz asks.
Ulian rolls his eyes. “Do you ever not?”
“Granted,” Viriden says.
“I like this side of you, sir. It is nice to know you are not a karat.” Ryz grunts. “Ow. What?”
Ulian grumbles something about respecting command.
Viriden sighs and keeps his voice low so only I can hear.
“I used to follow orders word for word. Then they took my wife, and I lost her because I was not fast enough to disobey. I am tired of losing people. And Solara’s father, though human, was as devoted to helping others as Tessi’s father, who was Isonian.
It is not easy to be the one who survives when the ones who deserved it the most didn’t. Solara takes after her father.”
“Is this mission out of guilt?” I ask.
“No. This is years of pent-up fury.” Viriden opens a new screen. “Ready?”
I lean back in my seat. He taps it, and the ship punches across the void. We sink back into the cushions.
Viriden tracks our progress on the navigation screen. “My patience with our rules regarding the Nebulous Empire has run out.”