Star Force: Lost Destiny (Wayward Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Here,” he said, opening and walking through another door, this one with power that whooshed aside at the press of a button. “This is where we must leave him.”

  “No.”

  Rammak ignored her and laid Teren’s body down on a flat and smooth tabletop, then a colorful lightshow lit up all around him with tiny glowing dots. Esna’s eyes went wide beneath her helmet that still bore the melted blast mark where she’d been hit.

  “What is all this?”

  “Your legacy…and mine.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “This is a starmap from before the fall, and it is the most appropriate place to leave him I can think of. Neither of you belong on this world. You belong in the past, and I can at least return him to it here and now. Beyond that there is nothing more I can do for your brother, but there is a great deal I can do for you. Stay here for a moment. I will return.”

  Esna didn’t say anything as he left, then took off her helmet showing red eyes and a pained face now lit by the glowing blue and grey dots that were surrounding her brother in a beautiful burial mount. She didn’t know what a starmap was, but it was the most awe inspiring sight she had ever seen…though it could barely put a dent in the emptiness that was consuming her.

  “Teren,” she whispered, suddenly pulling her gloves off in a panicked rush so she could touch his face.

  “Teren,” she repeated, sobbing and leaning over him not knowing what to do, but having no intention of ever moving from this spot.

  “To lose you both would be unbearable,” Rammak finally said softly from behind her a few minutes later.

  “I don’t care,” she mumbled, still clinging to her brother.

  “I do.”

  She didn’t answer, but a large soft hand slowly wrapped itself around her head, cupping her choppy hair in a caring gesture, but not pulling her away.

  “Take a moment more, then we must go.”

  5

  When Rammak finally nudged her aside she twisted out of his grip and latched onto her brother’s body.

  “No…” she said desperately.

  But the big Calavari didn’t rip her away as he easily could have. Instead he pointed at Teren.

  “What do you do with your dead on this planet?”

  “Bury them. Burn them.”

  “Eat them,” Rammak said, with Esna’s teary face whipping around to sneer at him.

  “Some do,” he said regretfully. “What would you have done?”

  “I’m not leaving him,” she said, but the futility of the words burned in her.

  Rammak stepped up beside her and sat down on the ground, bringing his massive head about level with hers as she leaned over Teren.

  “When you and I and Teren began, where did we come from?”

  “What?”

  “Where did we come from? Where does a person come from?”

  “Their parents.”

  “No. Our bodies do. Our minds do. But where does the person come from?”

  “What do you mean?” she said, just glad to be talking rather than being ripped away from her brother.

  “Do you know what a computer is?”

  She frowned. “I’m not a child.”

  “You are…in many ways. If your body is your physical parts, then your mind is a computer. Very complicated, but like any machine it can only do what it is programmed to do. It can’t think. It can’t make choices. It may look like it does, but everything in it is just a predetermined reaction. A machine can’t be stupid. How then can people be?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If a person were just a mind and body they would not be stupid. They would follow their programming as a machine only can. The ability to choose, the ability to be stupid, to go beyond your programming is a sign of something else. Your body heals itself by design, but some people puncture their bodies for fashion. Surely you’ve seen at least a few in town.”

  “We…don’t get into town a lot, but I have seen some.”

  “Your body does not like the damage, simple as it is, because it’s against its programming. It is programmed to heal, yet the person chooses to cause the damage because they think it looks good or for as many other reasons as you could imagine. The body tries to heal, the mind says not to poke or cut via pain and fear, but something else inside chooses to dispute those things and make the alterations anyway. That something else is what we refer to as the ‘Core’ of a person.”

  “And?”

  “Your core is the part of you that makes you a person. The part of you that is you. Where does it come from?”

  “Your parents.”

  “Does it? No one can say for sure, for no device ever made could identify the core. It’s still a mystery for the galaxy, even those that are far wiser than you can believe. They know the core exists because they can spot the interactions it has with the mind and body. Stupidity is one of those interactions. Bravery is another. So while no one can touch or see a person’s core, you can know when it is there by watching for its ripples. This is how we know you have a core but a plant does not. A plant has a body and a limited mind that will adjust to temperature and light. It can change and react, but all according to programming. It cannot choose. Cannot be stupid. It is alive, yet not alive. It is a biological machine.”

  “So too is your body,” Rammak continued, “but your core is inside it. We do not know how it got there, or even what it is. Also, we do not know what happens to it when you die, but we know it does not leave the body immediately after death.”

  “What!” she asked, a part of her wondering if there was a way her brother was still here.

  “We know this because people have been dead and brought back to life after a short span of time. Sadly the equipment necessary to do so in these ruins has been far too damaged to function or I would have attempted to bring Teren back.”

  “There’s a machine that can bring the dead back to life?” she asked, a mix of disbelief and cruel hope.

  “It simply repairs the damage to the body. It cannot touch the core, but if someone is dead and then is repaired and they are still there afterwards, it means we know the person’s core doesn’t leave the body when the heart stops beating. At least not immediately. The sorry thing is, we can only learn about the core through observing a person act, and when they’re not functioning there is nothing to observe. So is your brother still in his body or has he gone from it?”

  Esna looked down at his motionless frame, her emotions so confused now she almost couldn’t get any words out.

  “What are you saying to me?”

  “The device I speak of is called a Regenerator. I have seen it used to bring back those dead for hours, and have heard stories of it working after days in some rare cases…but in others it could not save those who were dead for only minutes. The bodies were repaired but they were inactive. The mind was functional, but there was no sign of a core’s presence. It’s like they were empty, though without being able to track a core we can’t say for sure. We don’t know how a core begins and we do not know how it ends, and out of respect for that fact we do not destroy the dead immediately. We lay them out like this, in safety if possible, to allow whatever transpires with their core to pass.”

  “You’re saying my brother could still be inside his body?”

  “No one can know for sure, and the only Regenerators I have found on this planet have been fragments, so there is no way to see if he is still there or not. Does he transition elsewhere or simply cease to exist? Those that say either are merely guessing, for no one knows that which they can’t see or study, but to say a core itself dies requires one to determine how it first began, and there are no answers there either. The core of a person is a mystery that we can only glimpse it when alive through its interactions with the body and the mind. If your mind is a computer, your core is the person sitting at the controls of that computer giving it instructions. Do you understand?”

  “You’re saying Teren could still be in
here,” she said, cupping her hand around the part of his head that didn’t have a hole in it.”

  “We cannot know anything for certain, other than he is beyond our ability to help. Whatever his journey from here, whether it continues in another fashion or ends abruptly, is something we cannot affect once his core leaves his body. How long that takes is the question, thus we will leave your brother here in solitude so that such unseen things may pass of their own accord. Normally we would burn the body after a given time to prevent it from rotting, but we cannot wait here through that lengthy delay and I do not want to destroy his body now.”

  “Because he might still be inside it…” Esna said, biting her lip as the thought of those implications horrified her.

  “His brain is not functioning, so bodily pain cannot register, but what occurs with the core is unknown. There are savages that claim they gain strength by eating their kill while the blood is still warm, and while I do not believe they know anything of consequence, such ramifications of what occurs to a person’s core are not something that should be ignored…thus we respect the dead by giving them a time of rest to transition, if possible. In war there is not always time, and as I said, it is better to destroy the bodies than to let them rot. The equipment is here to destroy Teren’s body if we chose to, but I would prefer to give him solitude during whatever transition his core is making, and there is no way to determine whether that has happened yet or not.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “Look around,” Rammak said. “These ruins have been on this planet for a long time, but to me they are not ruins. They are my past. I was here before they became ruins.”

  Esna’s face twisted up even more than her grief had done. “You’re lying. The cataclysm was too long ago.”

  “People don’t have to die as quickly as they do here and now, Esna. You can live forever.”

  Esna shook her head. “No. Everyone…dies,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut again as she looked at her brother.

  “Everyone can die,” Rammak corrected, “but not everyone has to. I very much want to keep you alive, but in order to do that we must move on and take advantage of what head start we have on our inevitable pursuit. I can destroy Teren’s body before then, but I would prefer to leave him here for the transition period.”

  “And then to rot?” she pointed out.

  “We are at war and do not have the luxury of remaining. If his core does leave his body then it will rot without him in it. That is distasteful, but I would rather err on the side of caution than disrespect the fact that he might still be in his body now. We need to leave him here, alone, and move on.”

  Esna didn’t say anything this time, merely bowing her head until it rested on Teren’s unmoving chest.

  “I would prefer this remain a moment in your memory that was respectful of your brother, but if I have to carry you out of here kicking and clawing to stay behind I will. He is dead, you are not. Would he want you to survive or to die with him?”

  “I’m already dead without him,” she said between gasps of air that seemed reluctant to enter her lungs.

  “No. You still live, pained as you are. But not all of your pain is grief. You are injured, and we must attend to that now, Regenerator or no. Come with me…please. But know that I will save your life even if you no longer care for it. I will carry you out of this room as baggage if need be, and you will not be able to stop me.”

  “No?” Esna snarled, pulling her pistol out and aiming it at him, but the Calavari did not react. He just stared at her patiently for a moment, then the fire within Esna disappeared along with the strength in her arm. It dropped along with the pistol, clattering on the floor as she sagged down into a puddle beneath the table on which her brother lay.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, balling up in a mess of grief until one of the giant four-fingered orange hands came within her vision and gently grabbed her own tiny hand.

  “Come. All you need do is follow. Set your mind to that and I will help you survive. You are parted from your brother now whether you wish it or not. He will traverse whatever lies next, so bid him farewell and continue on with your journey. There is nothing left for you to do here.”

  Esna let the Calavari pull her to her feet, then she turned around and looked at Teren’s body one last time. The beautiful clothing and the serenity of the place was something he deserved, rather than the hole in the ground that their father had been placed into so long ago. And Rammak was right. There was nothing else she could do for him now.

  “You said he’ll be safe here?”

  “Most cannot come the way we did. And those that can, if they find this place, will not be here until after the transition period. Your brother will have his time to lay in peace regardless of what transpires from here on out. There is no need to guard him.”

  Esna looked around the room, seeing all the stuff in here that wouldn’t have survived even a single scavenger, and she knew he was right. No one knew about this place.

  “I’ll follow,” she said meekly.

  Rather than add further discussion, the Calavari reached down and picked up her helmet before walking to the door.

  “We have to attend to your wounds,” he said from the corridor as he waited for her to come.

  Esna moved slowly, but she did move. Not knowing if this was the right thing to do or not, for a part of her still didn’t want to leave her brother, damn the logic of it all. But her mind settled on following the Calavari while it curled up into a pain-ridden ball and checked out of everything else.

  She walked in a daze following his big mass, not knowing or caring where they were going, lost in the grief and futility of the moment.

  6

  “Take your armor off,” he said when they’d finally reached another intact room, this one filled with piles of what looked like salvage taken from the rest of the facility. None of it was broken, however, and Rammak began pulling out something in tiny packages from a box.

  Esna did as told, automatically disconnecting the various latches that held her protection and camouflage together. As she pulled off each piece she began to feel more and more exposed. The only people who had ever seen her outside her armor were Teren, Yammar, and Innit…and it felt very odd to be taking it off somewhere other than their home or in the wild with no one around.

  She winced several times, and it wasn’t because of the exposure. Between the adrenaline of the fight and the heart wrenching emotions she’d numbed up against the physical pain of the burns, but peeling the armor off and rubbing them was reigniting the pain as well as tearing away the cauterized scabs. Her blood ran fresh, soaking into an already burnt, red, and sweaty clothing wrap underneath. Esna didn’t stop though, and soon was standing with her armor pieces in a pile as a cool draft sent a chill through her despite the clothing she still wore.

  In fact it went all the way through her and to the bone. Esna began shivering and wouldn’t stop, eventually having to sit down on the ground else she fall down due to lack of coordination.

  “Aftershock,” Rammak said, kneeling down next to her. “I need to take your clothes off to apply these.”

  “Wha…t…are…the..y?” she asking through chattering teeth.

  “Healing patches. They’re very old, but the ones I’ve used still work. I assume these will as well. May I?”

  “You…wi..ll…an…yway.”

  The Calavari smiled. “True. I will not let you come to harm out of misguided humility,” he said, standing up and grabbing something else. He returned with a cutting tool and slid it along her sleeve.

  “He…y…”

  “I have other clothes for you,” he said, cutting it all the way up to her neck and repeating on the other arm before peeling her shirt off and exposing her breasts, but it was the burn marks that he was interested in. They were spilling out more blood now, and he had to get that stopped before she lost much more.

  He took one patch and opened it, applying a certain side to her s
kin and smoothing the edges around it as he covered the burn, then used a piece of her shirt to wipe away the surrounding blood, none of which adhered to the patch itself.

  “Ah…wha…t?”

  “There is a pain numbing chemical in the patch. It won’t do anything for your emotional state or shock, but the burns…” he said, trailing off as he saw another one near the small of her back. A deep one. “I am surprised you are still able to walk. You must have taken two hits to the same location. Most of a shot must have gotten through.”

  “How…ba..d?”

  “Stay still…as much as you can manage,” Rammak said as he began rummaging through the boxes.

  Esna couldn’t, for she was shaking more now than ever as it dawned on her that it wasn’t the temperature. She was more messed up than she realized, not to mention helpless had the Calavari not been here. He returned several long moments later holding a small device. With two of his big hands he gently gripped her body and flipped her over face down. She grimaced as a burn on her leg complained, but the spot of pain in her back suddenly disappeared.

  “This gel will hold the place of the missing tissue and spur its regeneration. I have not had cause to use it, so let us hope it still works. Lie still and I will attend to the rest.”

  Esna didn’t try to speak, for it was all she could do to keep from banging her head on the floor as she shivered. Her sweaty body got colder as he cut away the rest of her clothing save for her underwear and socks. Soon the other painful spots on her body disappeared from her mental view, replaced by a sharp sting on her neck.

  “Ow,” she complained, but suddenly her teeth stopped chattering and her body suddenly flushed with warmth…that disappeared a few seconds later with a wave of goosebumps starting at her head and traveling all the way down to her toes. “What was that?”

  “Anti-shock medication.”

  “Did you test that on yourself too?” she asked, rolling over onto her leg carefully and looking at the patches on her body that were visible to her eyes. They were made of a smooth, almost magical material that clung to her skin despite it being wet with sweat that was quickly evaporating in the now very chilly room.