Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (53 page)

Byzlar could clearly see the gloom settling over her. “What happened?”

Lily’s smile grew harder to maintain as memories kept bubbling to the surface. “Tomás was...
is
a maximum, like me. His abilities manifested when he was fifteen and I was twelve. The manifestation, along with the excess Xenoprophin his body produced, was too much. My parents took him to every maximum specialist. They even flew him to Bal-Dobra to see if a Kudoban could suppress his powers, at least until he was old enough to control them. Nothing helped. His condition got so bad that...”

Lily couldn’t pretend to smile now. Even years later, it took all her resolve to steady herself as every detail of Tomás’s self-destruction rushed through her mind in a twisted slideshow. Her shoulders slumped as she succumbed to the flood of her past.

“Tomás’s powers drove him insane. He’s in a special facility that keeps him drugged up to suppress his abilities.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, marshalling the strength to finish. “I decided to become a xenobiologist after Tommy was committed... To help him and other maximums.”

“Liliana, I’m so sorry.”

The doctor opened her eyes to see Byzlar’s wide, sympathetic eyes shining like opals. She turned away, not needing or wanting it. “We should go back—” Something in the night sky stole the words from Lily’s mouth.

A massive camke swooped past their line of sight, a reptilian bird with leathery green and purple skin, and no feathers save for a thick, whitish tuft on its forehead. This camke, indigenous to Faroor, was the biggest Liliana had ever seen. But she might have been more excited if the creature didn’t seem frozen in mid-flight, as if someone had hit the “pause” button.

“Vaas, are you seeing this?” There was no response. Liliana turned to the Aesonite, finding him frozen in place. She frowned and snapped her fingers in his face. Not even a blink.

Dread washed over Liliana as she swiveled toward the Quud warrior watching them. He stood motionless, a ropy holo-manikin.
Thasque all over again.
“Dulce Madre!” Lily fretted.

Suddenly, the air felt boiling hot. Lily whipped her head back to the frozen camke and gaped.

The camke vanished, as had Qiidr Ol-Chaeda, Vaas Byzlar, and the Qiidr Mountains. Lily found herself sitting on cracked, wet earth, surrounded by several tall, flat-topped cone geysers spilling over with steaming rivulets. She sprang to her feet. The cone geysers resembled mini cylindrical buttes, issuing billows of white fog in every direction.

Did I doze off?
Lily recalled feeling tired, but not to the point of passing out in mid-conversation.

She spun about to seek out anything familiar, and found nothing. “Hello?” Lily called out. Sizzling steam and a steady murmur of water muffled her voice. She wiped sweat from her brow in surprise.

As far as Liliana could see through the fog, the ground was covered in spidery cracks filled with steaming water. Herope’s pink morning light from the east was nearly washed out by Qos’s silvery sphere burning at the sky’s zenith.

Gazing at the radiance, Lily nearly tripped over something while turning a corner.

Lying on the ground at her feet…was
her
in full Star Brigade uniform.

She stopped and gasped. The doctor’s own brown eyes stared up lifelessly, her own neck broken, as evidenced by the unnatural position of the corpse’s head.

It took considerable effort for the doctor to focus on anything else. Beyond her body lay several mutilated Ghebrekh corpses that were dismembered, crushed, or sliced up. The handiwork of her fellow Star Brigadiers was obvious. Lily was beyond dazed, but somehow forced herself to walk and discover what this grisly scene meant. Among the dead Ghebrekh were Star Brigade’s remaining TerraTrooper support. Specialist Byzlar, skull bashed; and Sergeant Fiyan with her throat slit, a strange stillness on her features.

The condensation and sweat drenching Liliana became afterthoughts as she trekked onward and found Khal slumped to her left against the side of a cone geyser, also in uniform. Beautiful even in death, she had to admit, a smoking hole sizzled on his chest. Next to him, warped chunks of an ice structure gushed out an odd ocean-blue liquid, the chilly shards melting under the harsh swelter. What was left of Tyris, blown apart?

The roar of a geyser’s expulsion startled Lily. Two other geysers sprayed massive jets into the sky.

During this, a woeful yowl caught her ear. Liliana tore her eyes away from her slaughtered teammates. An adorable feline cub scampered between two of the narrower geysers.

“What the—” she questioned in shaky tones. Even through the mist, she knew the cub was Kintarian, probably no older than six months by its large, green-flecked eyes. Yet that cub’s gaze held so much sorrow… looking so familiar.

The cub darted past Liliana into the humid fog behind her. Its identity dawned on her then, nearly dropping the doctor to her knees. “No,” she declared loudly, “
impossible
.”

“It is, Liliana Cortes.”

Lily spun with narrowed eyes toward the ghostly murmur of a voice.

“You again?” Liliana threw up her hands in parts infuriation, confusion, and resigned fear. Several feet away stood the gigantic snow-white hamster from downtown Thasque, wearing the same blacker-than-night cloak that obscured its whole body, minus its face.

“Where did you take me? Why are you showing me this? Better yet, who are you?!”

The rodent stood unaffected by her outburst and the muggy heat. “Walk with me.” It glided past Liliana, barely moving whatever lower limbs were beneath his trailing cloak. Seeing no other choice, she followed. Up close, it amazed her how
huge
this being was. Despite the muggy steam, Lily felt an unshakeable chill.

“To answer one of your queries,” it spoke with ethereal calm, “I represent a long-lived species known as the ‘Particulates,’ watching younger races from afar as they mature.”

Liliana gave her escort a sidelong glare, hearing but not believing.

The ‘Particulate’ didn’t even blink at her mistrust. “You asked.” It stopped and pointed. “Look.”

Another corpse lay before them, a shriveled geriatric husk looking up at the sky. So aged was the corpse that Lily wouldn’t have known him if not for his white, green, and gold armor.

Recognition was a cold, icy slap to Lily’s face. Seeing her commanding officer unnaturally aged to death gutted Lily wide open.

And there was more. Ghuj’aega stood several metrids away, his indigo skin and angular white tattoos visible. Around him were the shredded pieces of something both organic and robotic. A yellowish synthetic blood saturated the spacious gap between the geysers flanking his current position.

Lily allowed her grief-weary eyes to travel across cybernetic remains and a severed head with wet, red hair.
Marguliese!
Her cerulean eyes lifeless, golden features sliced open to expose cybernetic innards.

Unable to digest another teammate’s apparent death, she numbly turned back to Ghuj’aega. The terrorist was centering his stance as something silvery hurtled at him. The Ghebrekh grinned cruelly, raising both hands overhead, forming a crackling bolt of red energy—waiting… The silvery mass was almost upon him when Ghuj’aega savagely speared downward on the projectile.

His blow struck home, pinning the mass to the cracked earth. Ghuj’aega’s attacker crashed and spasmed, belching out bright reddish energy from its eyes and mouth.

Liliana knew that armored, dying being instantly, and it nearly broke her apart. “KHROME!!”

Horrified, the doctor pointed her fingers at Ghuj’aega and fired rings of concussive sound—that passed through the Ghebrekh leader as if he were a ghost.

“What??” Liliana stared at her hands in distress. Again, her powers had failed her.

Ghuj’aega smirked triumphantly, never noticing Lily or the Particulate.

Liliana’s mind was a mess. She didn’t know what to think or feel about all this death. The doctor vaguely felt massive fur-covered paws resting on her shoulders.

“This happens tomorrow...if you are killed,” the Particulate behind her spoke as if these events had already occurred. “Star Brigade obviously gets distracted and is beaten by Ghuj’aega.

“Ghuj’aega can see past and future paths,” he continued, “which is why he could evade others who have pursued him. Your gifts prevent him from fully seeing his future with Star Brigade. If you die, his vision will be restored. And he will defeat your team.”

Liliana shook off the Particulate’s paws and faced it. “You don’t know that,” she shot back.

The Particulate was unmoved as Qos’s glow brightened. “I do. What you saw is a possible future.”

Lily glanced skeptically over her shoulder at Ghuj’aega. “Why can’t anyone see us?”

“Because we are a spatial fraction out of sync,” said the Particulate.

Lily opened her mouth to counter his counter, and realized she had nothing. “Oh.” She looked at her sopping clothing. The Particulate, of course, wasn’t even damp. “No one can see us, but I’m soaked?!”

The Particulate’s mouth curved into a tight smile. “We’re not completely out of sync.”

Liliana shook her head, still incredulous. Ancient species? Time travel? And
why
did this “Particulate” choose
her
to witness this? Scientist or not, her brain was starting to hurt. “What’s so special about me?” she asked.

The Particulate looked down at her, a tinge of hope coloring its rodent face. “Your headaches from the skyquakes? You being able to see me? It is all tied to your abilities and their true source.”

Liliana was lost. She had never guessed any true source for her abilities beyond sound waves.

“The scope of your sonic abilities is so vast. And you are barely scratching their potential. You are the key to hampering Ghuj’aega enough for Star Brigade to end him.”

“But,” Liliana cut in, “why do you care about us beating Ghuj’aega?”

The Particulate began to answer, only to drop to its knees and let out a gargling roar instead, as if in severe pain. Suddenly the vista of geysers around them began to blur. Qos’s blaze grew blinding, whiting out Herope’s pink glare.

The Particulate looked up; Lily barely muffled a scream. The being’s face, once full and fuzzy, now was haggard, lined, and painfully aged in scraggily white fur.

“No time. LISTEN.” His ethereal murmur devolved into a harsh rumble. He grabbed her arms with his massive paws, enveloping them.

“If Ghuj’aega wins...tomorrow, his victory will...ravage not just Faroor. His triumph...will destroy...everything!”

The Particulate’s grip tightened, painfully constricting the blood flow to her arms. Liliana had to bite her tongue not to cry out. The Particulate, quivering now, leaned in closer until his midnight-black eyes overwhelmed her entire vision. Liliana’s thoughts were pounded to mush under the thunder of three words. “DO. NOT. FAIL.”

The Particulate released her then, and the blood painfully rushed back into her arms. But the doctor had no time to process as something from behind forcefully yanked her backwards.

Suddenly she was flying, the geysers and mist—the Particulate—whizzing away in a blur. Lily’s spine collided into something rocky and hard. She felt nothing afterward but muggy warmth.

DO. NOT. FAIL.
The Particulate’s words still thundered through her scrambled brain.

“Liliana!” someone else called her name. A slight tingle in the back of her neck.

Gravelly hands on her shoulders shook Liliana fully awake. Her eyes fluttered open. She was lying on her back, looking up at the plum-black heavens and Qos—its moonlight no longer blinding. Vaas crouched over Liliana, his stony face a mask of distress. The Quud warrior assigned to watch them both was gaping at her with saucer-sized eyes.

“In the name of the Maker, what happened?” Byzlar demanded.

The Particulate’s words faded as Liliana’s thoughts began to unscramble. She was back in the now.

“What happened?” Lily meant to ask, but it came out sounding like, “Whuahphen?” Slowly, she sat up.

“Liliana, one moment you were sitting next to me; the next, you went flying into that wall...”

Byzlar stopped and looked her over in shock. “And how did you get so wet?!”

“I...” Liliana didn’t know how to explain herself without sounding crazy. And why was the Farooqua warrior gaping at her like a child watching a 3D hologram for the first time?

The doctor’s chest felt so constricted, breathing was a chore. All Liliana seemed capable of at this moment was blinking stupidly as Byzlar and the Quud gaped back. But something then saved her the trouble of answering Byzlar’s question, drawing the Aesonite’s attention over her shoulder.

“—the three hells?!” He shot up to his feet.

The Quud warrior also looked in that direction. Liliana craned her neck around to see a chase was underway through the dim streets below. Three Farooqua were running from an astonishingly fast pursuer.

“Is that...” Byzlar began, squinting to make sure he was correct.

The chase neared the pyramid, placing the pursuer in clear view. “Marguliese,” Liliana gasped. The Cybernarr tore down the street, steadily cutting the distance between her and the Quud so swiftly she looked more like she was jogging. Lily hadn’t seen even professional sprinters move this fast. Two of the Quud banked a sharp right around the corner of another pyramid while the remaining Farooqua ran straight ahead, visibly exhausted. In a desperate attempt, this Quud fiddled with its belt, and then tossed something at Marguliese in a backhanded arc. The flash of metal under the glowstone lamps revealed a knife whistling through the air at the Cybernarr.

But Marguliese implausibly caught the blade in mid-sprint, flinging it back at the sender. The redirected knife hurtled straight into the back of the Farooqua’s neck. Lily, Byzlar, and the Quud warrior watched in horror as the fleeing Quud stumbled and flailed his limbs uselessly before faceplanting onto the road, never rising again.

Without another glance, Marguliese turned a sharp right and dashed off after the two other Farooqua.

Liliana jerked up to her feet. “Marguliese, NO!” she cried out.