But the old telepath’s words repeated themselves, draining the heat pumping through her body even as the ship rocketed down through the fiery atmosphere and into the clouds.
Save Kio…
Find another way…
Rex held tight to the netting as the woman held on to her, the wind whipping away the tears from her eyes.
The old woman rifled through and around her jacket, fastened something around her waist. Rex looked down to see herself clipped to the net with a cargo-securing belt.
“What are you doing?”
The ship banked hard. Rex lost her grip but stayed fastened to the netting by the belt as the woman flung away.
Kicking and flailing, Rex wrestled back upright as the winds screamed. Anything not nailed or bolted down banged and bashed its way through the widening holes as the ship dove through turbulent, lightning-streaked storm clouds.
“Hey!” Rex shouted, but the screaming winds stole her voice.
We’re gonna die, she thought, spotting one of the five remaining soldiers catching the old woman with one arm while grabbing onto a bolted handhold with the other. Even if the ship landed in one piece, the soldiers would tag and imprison them. Not without more bloodshed, not without risking—
Rex squeezed her eyes shut. I don’t want to Fall…
And become exactly what the Dominion propaganda wanted everyone to believe: That a Prodgy like her couldn’t control her powers to heal herself and others, and would eventually descend into maddening darkness, killing everything she came across. But she had no choice. She wasn’t going allow herself, or the old woman, to be taken. Even the chicken hybrids, hiding between the piping, didn’t deserve to suffer like this.
Or even that stupid kitcoon. Wherever he was.
The heat simmered in her chest. This time she wouldn’t give up so easily, not until she’d torn apart the soldiers from the inside-out—
The old woman glanced back at her, rheumy eyes filled with sadness. Then, as lightning flashed, a smile hinted at a corner of her mouth. Pulling herself up onto the same bolt, she said something into the mic by the soldier’s ear. A mic that linked the audio to the rest of the unit.
Thunder boomed, white lightning cracked open the sky. Rain fizzled against the shields as the soldiers arched and squirmed.
Rex heard the woman’s voice in the telepathic echo, soothing and calm. (Let go.)
Powerful. Persuasive. Inescapable. The type of power that should be feared.
Rex let go of the netting. She flipped over onto her back, but didn’t struggle, allowing her arms and legs to be taken by the winds as the belt held her fast at the waist. She watched as, one-by-one, the soldiers let go of their holds and were swept out into the maelstrom.
Another peel of thunder rocked the vessel.
Oh Gods—what did she do? Rex thought, coming out of the trance. The old woman clung to the bolted handhold, but bent, arthritic fingers couldn’t grip much longer. And the crushing, half ton drum of biohazardous material sliding toward her on a collision course—
“Watch out!” Rex screamed, fighting to turn back over—to somehow get to the old woman—
The old woman took one look at the biohazard drum and then back at Rex. She called out to her, but the storm and turbulence stripped her words.
“Don’t let go!” Rex cried. “DON’T—”
The ship plummeted, sending Rex, and everything else, flying upward and crashing against the ceiling. Her head struck metal piping. The pain didn’t register, nor the shock of blood spilling down her face, as all went dark.
Rex woke awkwardly sprawled across a pile of luggage, face down, with her left cheek pressed against the grated starship floor. Her first breath came with a panicked heave and cough, as if she’d been gut-punched.
Memories came trickling in along with a lancing pain to the back of her skull. When she rolled to her back, she got a nose full of fur and feathers.
“Get off,” she said, batting her hands as the chicken flapped and pecked at her. It landed with the rest of the remaining flock, in the stream of artificial light coming through the gaping hole from the hull. It cocked its head and gave her one last squawk before continuing to scavenge through the debris.
Rex’s mouth tasted like copper, but that didn’t concern her as much as the odor of leaked fuel and smoke. Through the stink, she detected the smell of wet leaves, upended dirt, and a floral miasma.
Where did we crash?
Holding the back of her skull, she surveyed the landscape beyond the hole in the hulclass="underline" White smoke obscured all but some greenery, colorful flowers, dirt—and a strange, multi-colored glow up ahead. In a break in the clouds and smoke, a few scattered stars twinkled in the night sky.
Rex staggered to her feet, toppling over boxes and leaning on bins until she found her balance. Muffled shouting came from close by. The cargo hold door creaked and groaned, then opened a crack. The voices got louder as red emergency lights flickered. Flashlights peered inside.
“Is anybody in there?” someone shouted. “Help is on the way.”
More Dominion soldiers would come. So many witnesses…
Her adopted mother’s reprimands surfaced in the back of her mind: “What have you done, Rex?”
The hunt was on.
Experience kicked in, despite the terror shrieking at her to flee. She grabbed a hooded cloak out of an opened suitcase. As she secured it around her shoulders, the memory of the old woman shoving the kitcoon in her arms surfaced: “Take Kio. Protect each other.”
She snorted. That little pest had just made things worse.
The old woman’s plea entered her mind again: “Save him.”
With a huff, she gave a quick scan over the mess for the old woman’s pet. Reptilian critters and a few hybrid mammals crawled around, but no scrawny kitcoon. Besides, the headache was deepening, spreading from the back of her skull to her temples. I don’t need another burden.
“You guys witnessed—I tried,” she muttered to the chickens as she crawled out of the hole and into the forest.
One of them flapped its wings and cooed.
Her boots crunched down upon broken branches and sank into damp moss as she traversed through a wooded area with hedges and flowered bushes. But her trek didn’t last long.
Chak, she swore. Jet engines rumbled overhead as another transport shuttled by. She followed the exhaust trail to the landing pad up ahead. As she stepped over a splintered log, a break in the trees and smoke revealed a sprawling city with lighted skyscrapers that penetrated the low-hanging clouds. Holographic advertisements, featuring oversized models, floated between the buildings, filling every inch of air space. We landed in someone’s garden.
In the back of her mind, she knew it was a good break, but then again, she wasn’t in La Raja, and the Dominion was on her tail.
She hustled to the edge of the greenery, slid through the rods of an iron fence, and disappeared into the sleepless city.
Dominion sirens echoed throughout the city as Rex walked down a street crammed with vendors and cheap hotels. Holographic marine animals swam through a digital ocean a few meters above her head, with an advertisement for a VACATION OF A LIFETIME trailing in the bubbles in multiple languages. Another reminder than she needed to get off the planet—