Hybrid Saga 01 - Hybrid (48 page)

Jarred shrugged. “I don’t.”

Elora scowled at him.

“Look,” he said. “Why don’t you just take a deep breath and tell me what it is you’re trying to say.”

Elora let out a moan of frustration, but seemed to compose herself a bit. “Considering everything that’s happened . . . or
is
happening right now, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to . . . let our emotions get the better of us.”

Jarred stretched one arm out and rested it against the tree just above Elora’s shoulder. “I understand. You don’t think we should . . .
start
something.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, not seeming entirely sure of herself.

“I agree,” he said, placing his other hand on the tree above her opposite shoulder.

Elora looked almost surprised. “You do?”

Jarred nodded, leaning his face in closer to hers. “Absolutely. It’s a terrible idea.”

“Well,” she said, shifting her gaze away from his. “I’m glad we’re both agreed then.”

Jarred waited until her eyes came back to meet his. “So am I.”

He made to lean in again to close the small gap between them and stopped when Elora’s eyes widened, a look of general recognition rather than surprise, her gaze settling on something over his shoulder. Craning his neck around to see what had distracted her, he wasn’t entirely surprised to find Orna standing in the clearing, watching them. He had every intention of speaking with the strange being that had self admittedly led him here, and subsequently to the sword, but her timing couldn’t have been worse.

Breathing a sigh, he looked back to Elora who was already ducking under his arms to come up beside him.

“We can talk more later,” she said, backing away. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

Jarred thought to stop her, to ask her to stay, but resisted the urge. The conversation he was about to have would probably require some privacy, so instead he watched her go, waiting until she had disappeared into the thick tree line before turning back to face Orna. He eyed her for a moment, attempting to measure her intent. What was she leading him towards? He had no doubt that was what she was doing, but the where and why were still a mystery. Approaching her indirectly, he made his way to the edge of the scenic clearing to gaze out over the mountainside, remaining close enough so that they could speak comfortably.

“You are fond of her,” Orna commented, breaking the long silence.

Jarred didn’t bother confirming her observation. That made it no less true, of course. The more time he spent with Elora, the more drawn to her he was becoming. The more
attached
he was becoming. His initial instinct was to view that as a negative thing. Any attachment could be seen as a weakness, an anchor to hold him in place, though he knew that particular philosophy was a self imposed one, meant to keep people at bay. Apparently, it wasn’t working. He found it odd that he was actually beginning to analyze himself, and even more so, that he was poking holes in his own logic. His armor was failing.

Regardless, he didn’t intend on divulging any of that to Orna, and instead, changed the subject.

“Are you ready to tell me exactly what it was that I found down there?” he asked.

“Do you not already know?” she returned, seemingly unfazed by the abrupt subject change. “Inside the sphere, you were shown, were you not?”

“I was . . .
shown
something
,” Jarred answered, still trying to make sense of the barrage of images that had been blasted, like a cannon volley, into his head when he had taken hold of sword inside the sphere. “But I don’t know what it meant. Or what any of it has to do with me.”

“Are you
ready
to know the answers to those questions?” Orna asked.

Jarred looked at her. It was a good question and, as always, she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. Wherever all of this was leading, he
wasn’t
sure if he was ready for the end result. The questions that had plagued him all of his life, that he had tried so futilely to put out of his mind, were suddenly before him. Did he
want
to know? That was the question he needed to answer for himself. Not whether or not he was ready, but if this was what he really wanted.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Orna blinked something akin to an acknowledgement. “Then it is up to you now. With my help you have taken the first steps to finding the answers. Now you must continue along the path on your own. I have revealed to you all that I can. The rest you will need to discover for yourself.”

“How do I do that?” Jarred asked.

“By the same means that you found the sphere.”

Jarred looked to the sword in his hand.

“
It
will lead you,” Orna continued. “The sword has chosen you as its bearer. You are bound to one another now. It will protect and guide you, but you must first learn to listen to it.
Trust
in it. It is far more than a weapon. It is a key . . . to unlocking many things and many truths.”

Jarred considered her words. The sword would lead him to more answers. Orna claimed that she could not. He didn’t buy that. She knew far more than she was saying, but this had been her game all along. She didn’t give him answers, but redirected his questions back at him. Whether he liked it or not, if he wanted answers, he was going to have to find them for himself, just as she had said. Which left him with only one question to ask.

“So, where does it want me to take it?”

Though the question was a rhetorical one, and he suspected Orna knew as much, her answer was not totally unexpected.

“That is a question you must ask of that which leads you.”

He supposed he had already come to that conclusion himself. The dream. It was telling him where he needed to go. He woke with none of the answers he sought, but feeling compelled to seek the place out. Images of a frozen wasteland weren’t exactly coordinates on a map though. The system had dozens of frozen planets and satellites. Was he supposed to travel to each one? What was he even looking for? Would he know it when he found it? If the last day’s events were any indication, he supposed he would. He would feel it, as he had when he’d found the sphere. He was reaching of course, but under the circumstances, he had little else to go on. And what if he did find it? Would it only lead him to the dark place he found himself again once passing through its luminous entrance? His dream seemed to tell him as much.

Orna’s curious gaze caught Jarred’s attention, but he did not bother asking the question she would no doubt be expecting. He had learned better by now. She wanted him to do this on his own and that was exactly what he intended to do, when the time was right.

First, he had a promise to keep.

*     *     *

Repairs to the
Fancy Girl
actually seemed to be nearing completion, at least as far as the breaches in the hull were concerned. That much Jarred had been able to ascertain on his approach to the vessel. He hoped the damaged drive had seen the same amount of progress, otherwise he wouldn’t be going anywhere in much of a hurry, which was exactly what he needed to do if he intended on moving forward with his plans. Of course, getting the ship back into space worthy condition was only the first obstacle in his path. The second, he knew, was waiting somewhere onboard.

Entering the main hold of the ship, Jarred found Elora sitting at the centralized common table. She smiled a greeting at him and he returned it with one of his own. He was glad she was here. They had a conversation of their own to finish, though it would need to wait. Right now, there were some things that she needed to hear along with the others that took precedence.

Kern emerged from the vessel’s aft end, his coveralls smeared with grease and other engine lubricants.

“Look who decides to show up once all the hard work is done,” he greeted Jarred, dryly.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jarred returned. “I’ve been a bit . . . distracted.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kern unzipped the front of his coveralls and slipped his shoulders out of them. “This is mostly just for show anyway. Got to look busy for the boss. The Toguai did the majority of the work.”

Jarred snorted a laugh. “So, does that mean we’re back up and running?”

“All systems ready for launch, along with a few
unexpected
surprises.”

Jarred raised his brow at that. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know how they did it,” Kern began, “but along with repairing half the ship, the Toguai also managed to bypass its encryption locked security protocols and opened every sealed compartment and locker onboard, along with granting access to all of the computer’s protected systems and files.”

“Really?” Jarred said, actually surprised. “Find anything interesting?”

“That would be an understatement,” Kern answered. “Would you like the tour?”

“Maybe later. Right now I was hoping to speak with both you and Sierra.” Jarred looked back to Elora. “To all of you, actually.”

“It’s about time.”

Jarred turned in the direction of Sierra’s voice and found her leaning against the archway of the flight deck corridor, eyeing him with her usual air of hostility.

“In fact,” she continued, “I would say that that it’s well overdo.”

“I agree,” Jarred admonished. “And I apologize for keeping everyone in the dark. I’ve just needed some time to sort through everything for myself before trying to explain it to anyone. I’m ready to do that now.”

Sierra’s glare remained as she folded her arms across her chest. “We’re all ears.”

Jarred wasn’t entirely sure of what had incited the woman’s anger with him, but it had been painfully obvious since his return from the caves. His assumption was that she had been put off by the regularity of his conversations with Orna and the secrecy in which they had been conducted. In her place, he probably would have felt the same. Regardless, her issues with him were something she was going to have to deal with. He didn’t have time to reassure her bruised ego. He would lay it all out for them, followed by what he was planning to do. It probably wouldn’t go over well, but he had made his decision.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

Over the next half hour, Jarred recounted the events of the previous day, from the long trek into the mountains with his Toguai guide to his discovery of the sphere, describing as best he could what he had found inside it, followed by the vessel’s destruction and the subsequent cave collapse he had only narrowly escaped.

Along with Elora and Kern, Sierra had remained silent for all of it, he assumed waiting for him to finish before voicing any of the follow up questions she would undoubtedly have. Surprisingly, once he had gone quiet for a sufficient period to suggest he was finished, she did not immediately launch into her interrogation, instead continuing to scrutinize him in silence. For a moment, Jarred thought he may actually escape the expected barrage, but realized quickly that he would not be so fortunate.

Leaning forward, her brow furrowed in a deep arch of obvious suspicion, she finally spoke. “Why?”

Jarred was actually surprised by the simplicity of the question, not knowing quite how to answer. “”Why what?”

“Why you? Why would Orna send you in there?”

When he did not immediately reply, Sierra continued. “Why is she so interested in you? Who are you?”

“Sierra,” Kern interrupted. “Take it easy.”

“He’s been hiding things from us since we met him,” Sierra argued, her eyes burning into Jarred as she spoke.

“I saw that blast burn a hole into your chest,” she said, accusingly, as though the fact somehow proved her point. “No one could have survived that. No one
human
. What are you?”

Jarred hesitated, but there was no hiding from it anymore. “I don’t know. I’ve always been . . .
different
. I’ve kept myself from facing that fact for a long time, but Orna . . . has a way of making you see things you don’t always want to.”

“What did you two talk about that day?” Sierra pressed. “What did she tell you?”

Jarred had thought a lot about how to answer that question. What he would say, and also, what he would leave out. A lot of what Orna had told him, he found hard enough to understand and believe himself. Voicing it all to Sierra and the others now would only serve to further complicate matters.

“That she had known my parents,” he finally answered, receiving surprised looks from everyone.

“How?” Sierra asked, skeptically, obviously thrown off by the unexpected response.

“I don’t know. It was before I was born. They were . . . part of something. Maybe a resistance. I’m guessing she was part of whatever it was. Before you ask, she didn’t elaborate.”

“That makes
some
sense,” Kern commented, Sierra shooting him a sharp look. It was one Jarred had seen before, whenever Kern had let information slip that she obviously wanted kept quiet.