Hybrid Saga 01 - Hybrid (51 page)

If her brother’s life wasn’t at stake, she would almost have to laugh at the situation. Jarred had been more than resistant to having Ethan and herself tagging along with him. An entire village of stalky grey beings at his heels was probably the equivalent of his worst possible nightmare.

Kern and Sierra didn’t look any more pleased, standing off to one side near the ship’s boarding ramp. Though they had agreed to help Jarred, they would no doubt want the job over and done with quickly so that they could return to collect Orna and complete their own.

“Hold on,
who’s
coming after me?” Jarred asked, the outrage in his voice obvious. “You know what, never mind. I didn’t sign up for any of this. The Toguai can keep this thing. I’ll just put it right back where I found it.”

“You must know by now that is not possible,” Orna replied, calmly. “What has been done cannot be undone. You and the sword are bound to one another now. Together, you have opened a doorway which cannot be closed. Now you must continue along your chosen path.”

“Chosen path?” Jarred exclaimed. “I didn’t
choose
this! You
told
me to go in there.”

“I did no such thing,” Orna corrected. “You wanted answers. I simply directed you to where you could find them. The choice to enter the sphere and remove the sword was your own.”

Jarred didn’t respond immediately, remaining silent for a long moment, as though composing himself.

“Orna,” he said, finally, speaking through clenched teeth. “Would you please thank the Toguai for their generous offer, but inform them that we just don’t have space for their entire village onboard.”

Orna kept her gaze on Jarred. “They are of course aware of this. The village will not be joining you.”

Jarred gave her a confused look. “Oh. But, I thought you said they meant to . . .”

“Accompany you,” Orna finished his sentence. “Yes, they do. The Toguai have selected a single member of their clan to serve as your honor guard on all of their behalf. He will be the only one to go with you.”

Jarred looked around at the many Toguai surrounding the landing site. “Which one?”

“You have already met him. He was your guide into the mountain.”

Elora’s gaze shifted to a single Toguai as it stepped forward, away from the rest of the group. Really, it was difficult to tell any of them apart, aside from some of the more extreme age differences, but this one had a satchel slung across his body over one shoulder. Apparently it was his only baggage for the trip.

“Tarik was chosen for this task upon your arrival,” Orna continued. “For as long as you are the bearer of the sword, he will be with you. Where you go, he will go, and he will give his life to protect yours.”

Jarred let out a heavy breath. “There’s no way I can convince them to reconsider?”

“For your sake, no,” Orna began. “You may not believe so now, but you
will need
his help . . . and that of others.”

Jarred glanced over his shoulder at Sierra and Kern behind him. He wasn’t the type of person who asked for help. That much was obvious, but the circumstances they had all found themselves in seemed to leave him with few options. As much as it appeared to pain him to admit, he couldn’t pull off this rescue alone. But Orna’s tone seemed to imply something more. A deeper meaning to her words that went beyond their current situation. Elora wasn’t sure what it was, but she could tell the statement had struck a deeper chord with Jarred as well.

Jarred gave Orna a nod before returning his gaze to the stalky Toguai, Tarik, looking him up and down for a moment. “Well, it’s not like I’ve been in the habit of turning anyone away lately.” He gestured towards the boarding ramp. “Welcome aboard, I guess.”

Chapter 28

Kern had breathed a heavy sigh of relief after dusting off from the Toguai village landing site with cloaking field initiated and fully functioning. He now found himself holding it again as they began to pass by elements of the Dominion blockade. This would be the true test of the unique device’s capabilities. If it failed and any one of the multitude of ships’ scanners picked up any trace of them, they would stand no chance of escaping. All he could do at this point was stay his course, slow and steady . . . and hope. By the dead silence on the flight deck, he assumed everyone else was doing the same.

The sheer immensity of the blockade sent a shiver up his spine. He watched with nervous amazement as the ship’s sensors identified each vessel, the makes and classes scrolling across the display in front of him. There were hundreds of them, mostly cruisers and frigates, gunships patrolling the spaces between them, all maintaining a synchronized orbit around Solta. Inside of that orbital ring, the highly sensitive scanners had registered thousands more pings that most wouldn’t have. A planetary minefield wrapped around the planet’s exosphere. Should he ever meet Arden Taliss, he would need to thank him for his precautions. Usually a minefield was used as a bold form of deterrence and would be highly pronounced. This one was meant to go undetected. They had negotiated a safe path through it with relative ease, but the fact that it was there at all gave him a bad feeling.

The Dominion had obviously gone to great lengths to ensure that no one escaped or entered Solta’s atmosphere, but without alerting anyone outside to the nature of what was actually happening on the surface. What
were
they telling everyone? On and off world communications had been jammed. People had to be wondering. Though it was a moon, Solta was still a highly trafficked world.

“It looks like we’ve passed through their jamming field,” Jarred announced, as though in response to Kern’s unspoken questions. “Comm channels are coming back up. There’s a tone of chatter bouncing around out there.”

“Who’s talking?” Sierra asked.

Kern spared a glance back to see Jarred’s hesitant look before he finally replied.

“Everyone.”

“What do you mean,
everyone
?” Sierra questioned.

Jarred shook his head as he looked back to the comm. “I mean . . .
everyone’s
talking. The comm lines are jammed with crossing waves. Something big is going on and it’s got a lot of attention.”

“Yeah,” Kern agreed. “The Sect just set up a major blockade on one of the system’s biggest trade moons. That’s bound to get some attention.” He motioned out the front viewport. “Why don’t we concentrate on the task of passing through it ourselves?”

“I’ve got a broadband news feed coming down the line,” Jarred stated, as if not hearing Kern’s plea to make a hasty retreat. “Official channels across all bands.”

“Bring it up,” Sierra demanded, impatiently, obviously more interested in discovering the source of all the attention than breaking the blockade.

“
-cannot yet be confirmed
,”
a female broadcaster was reporting, as Jarred keyed into the live news feed, “
but civilian casualties are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands
.
The detonation is said to have caused catastrophic damage to Trycon’s inner core, the yet to be determined fallout reaching out as far as the outermost city limits
.”

Kern nearly jumped out of the flight seat, having to force himself to keep his focus on flying.
Detonation in Trycon
?
Hundreds of thousands dead
? That couldn’t be true.

“Did she just say
detonation
?” he echoed. “In
Trycon
?”

Neither Sierra or Jarred answered, both keeping their focus on the comm transmission.

“
Due to the biological nature of the attack
,” the broadcaster continued,
“
Solta itself, and its surrounding space, has been placed under military quarantine
.
Unauthorized travel in, what has now been deemed, the restricted zone, is limited to military personnel only, which has hindered efforts to obtain detailed imagery of what was once Trycon’s core
.
Additionally
,
attempts to make contact with Trycon or any of the settlements on Solta have been unsuccessful, purportedly due to a build up of electro magnetic distortion generated by the explosion
.

“
According to military officials
,
the yet to be identified terrorist faction was specifically targeting the city’s governing district
.
It is unknown as to whether or not Governor Falin or any members of his caucus survived the attack, but officials appear doubtful
.”

Terrorist faction
. During their narrow escape from Trycon only a few days earlier, a fictitious terrorist threat had been used as the reasoning for the military enforced lockdown of the city, themselves declared as those would be terrorists. Now there had been a
terrorist attack
, supposedly killing tens of thousands of innocent citizens and they, as the
terrorists
, obviously hadn’t committed it, which left Kern to wonder who had. He hardly had to try. The answer was obvious. And horrifying.

“We have just received word-”
the reporter continued. “
Head of State Cal Dorion is just moments from releasing a public statement on the attack. We now go live to that feed from the Gaian capitol.”

Kern
did
spare a glance this time as Jarred brought up the live holographic feed, the large floating image of the Head of State filling the flight deck.

“Citizens of the Dominion,”
the Head of State began.
“I speak to you today under the most tragic of circumstances. The senseless terrorist attack perpetrated against the beings of Solta has shocked and saddened us all. On behalf of the Sect governance, my thoughts and prayers go out to those that have lost their lives and to their families and fellow citizenry who continue to suffer in the continuing aftermath. Even now, military, policing and emergency response forces from around the system work, in combined efforts, to stabilize the situation. I would ask that reporting broadcasters and concerned citizens alike respect the seriousness of the quarantine in effect and allow these forces to do their work.

“Fellow beings, I understand your worry and doubt. I understand your fear. Such monstrous events test our resolve and cause us to doubt ourselves. I ask you now to stand firm with me and the beings of Solta. This attack was not only perpetrated against the citizens of Trycon, but against us all, as we are all beings of the Dominion. What happens to one of us happens to us all. As we mourn this great loss and seek to aid those directly affected by this attack, we must also take action to see that such a thing does not happen again. We
will
identify those responsible for this massacre. And we
will
bring them to justice. Before all citizens of the Sect Dominion, and the Gods Themselves, I promise this.

“To the perpetrators of this vile act, who call themselves freedom fighters, and to any who would do harm to the loyal beings of this system, I send this message to you now. There is no distance that you can travel, nor haven in which you can find refuge, that will shield you from our vengeance. For rest assured, vengeance will be met, swiftly and decisively. You have wounded us, but we are not beaten. With this act of cowardice you have only hardened our resolve. We will not rest until justice is done. You will be rooted out from whatever dark corners you crawl into and, before the
free beings
of this system, the full might of the Sect will be brought down upon you.”

Kern saw the holograph of the Chief of State vanish in the reflection of his front viewport, being immediately replaced by the broadcast’s anchor.
“Strong words,”
he began, in a somber tone,
“from the Chief of State in response to the violent attack on the city of Trycon. As emotions run high across the system from the shockwave caused by this tragedy, we can only hope that -”

“Shut it off,” Sierra snarled, obviously furious and as disgusted as Kern was. After Jarred had complied, cutting the transmission, she seemed to take a moment to compose herself before finally speaking again, her voice calm but with an ice cold edge to it. “I need to see it.”

“You need to see it?” Kern repeated, questioningly. “See what?” The obvious answer came to him almost as the words had left his lips and he began to protest. “Oh, no. I think that’s a bad idea. We’re almost out of this.”