Diana Fenton
The screams had changed. The doctors were no longer shouting amongst themselves, worried at the fact she couldn’t be sedated.
They were shrieking because there was an enemy at the door.
Diana still couldn’t open her eyes. She had enough mental control to fight past the drugs being used to lock her in place, but she couldn’t yet control her body.
She didn’t need to. Her mind was more than enough. And her functioning senses told her that chaos was about to be let loose on this medical lab.
“Shore up the door. Fix those shields,” the senior doctor erupted, his voice splitting through the room as loudly as if it had been blasted out by a heavy cruiser’s speakers.
“It’s not going to—” someone began.
They didn’t get the chance to finish. Diana heard an explosion. It shook through the room so violently, it felt as if someone had grabbed her by the shoulders and wouldn’t let go.
Fear coalesced in her mind, stabbing through her body, practically slicing every muscle in turn.
Tears trailed down her cheeks, but there was nothing she could do, nothing she could do—
“Get—” the senior doctor said.
He was cut short as the man was cut down.
Diana could feel his mind one minute – then the next, he was dead.
She managed to open her lips, and she gasped.
She knew what was coming.
The Force.
It would reach her with an infected cadet, it would push into her mind, and it would steal the information it desired so desperately.
Diana tried to move. She managed to twitch her fingers, but that was it.
The medical equipment beside her started to blare, but before it could continue, someone shot it, and its shrill beep died with a waver.
No one else screamed. There was no one left to. All she heard was the sound of somebody’s staggered, uneven footfall coming her way.
Her life flashed before her eyes. The last several days, the death of her parents. Everything. But one thing rose higher and faster and stronger than anything else.
Sampson.
Her lips cracked open. She went to whisper his name.
She didn’t get the chance. She felt someone’s hand lock around her throat. There were no longer any medical shields protecting her bed. It sounded as if every console in the room had been shot, and heavy crackles filled the air.
The fingers around her throat tightened, and she was wrenched clean off the bed.
She couldn’t move her limbs, even to protect herself as she was dumped on the ground.
Pain didn’t have a chance to snake through her knees, dive up her legs, and sink into every vertebra. Someone secured her in a headlock, and she felt a sweaty, deathly cold hand snag hold of her left temple.
Fingers dug in, and a mind dug in a second later.
But it was no ordinary mind. Diana had been able to defend herself, in part, against Bequelia.
There was nothing she could do against the force of this psychic attack. It felt like standing in the path of thousands of heavy cruisers as they all opened fire on her at once.
She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. All she could do was crumble.
Flashes of her memories blasted through her, each more fractured than the last.
They coalesced down to a point. Down to a point….
Diana was dragged into the past, dragged back into the memory of the day her family had died.
This was unlike when Bequelia had shoved her back into that memory. It didn’t form around her seamlessly. It was as broken as if somebody had painted each memory on glass and shattered them around her feet.
She caught sight of her father’s smiling face, then a second later, he was dead in front of her. She saw her mother reaching out to her, but at the same time, she saw her being cut down by a spinning chunk of metal.
The person who held Diana said nothing. Though the word person was generous. They felt dead, nothing more than some corpse being controlled by an outside hand.
There was nothing Diana could do as her mind was forced through memory after memory, each one gathering speed until it felt as if she was standing in the path of a speeding cruiser.
She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t move. All she could do was watch as tortured recollections of her eight-year-old self flashed past like bullets.
She felt herself being turned, both in the real world and in her memory until she faced the wall.
… The wall.
That’s what the Force was after. That’s what Bequelia had sought too. They wanted to know what was behind the wall. But to do that, they needed Diana’s sight.
She suddenly appreciated that, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t goddamn move.
She felt a hand clamp down on the back of her head. In her memory, her father grabbed her, and locked his hand so hard around her skull, it was like he was going to crush it.
“No, please,” Diana begged, tears sliding down her cheeks.
It didn’t matter.
“Stare through the wall,” a voice split through her mind. Calling it a voice was generous. It sounded like nothing more than noise designed to slash through anything in its path, from minds to matter to the galaxy itself.
“No,” Diana spluttered again. Her tears could do nothing. She knew that. Somewhere beyond her violent fear, she accepted the only thing she could do was fight back.
Fight back.
Just when it felt as if her father would wrench her up by her head and shove her face against the wall in her memory, she moved. She had to break not just the mental lock holding her in place, but fight against the sedatives, too. It was like – ironically – pushing against a wall.
Diana had always fought. She’d fought for her sanity, and that was a fight few could win with trauma like hers.
So she could fight now, right?
She could push. Stand. Turn. Fight.
Those words gathered speed in her mind, repeating over and over again like the wheels of some unstoppable vehicle.
Fight.
The time has come.
The time has finally come.
Just when she felt the Force push through into her head, trying to infect her eyes to use them to see through the wall, Diana reached her hand back. She locked it on the wrist behind her head, and she wrenched it off her.
As soon as the fingers fell from her scalp, her recollection shattered.
Reality swirled around her until, forcing her eyes open, she saw the medical bay.
She didn’t take the time to unsteadily stumble to her feet. She rocketed there.
She stared down at the blank-faced doctor who’d attacked her. The woman’s eyes were open, but her mind was as empty as a vacuum.
The doctor opened her mouth, but rather than speak or scream, nothing came out but a silent, gaping shriek. It looked as if she were widening her jaw to swallow all of reality.
It was the Force. And it wasn’t done with her.
In a snapped second, the mindless doctor threw herself at Diana.
Diana tried to back off, but while she’d managed to break free once, her body was still weak. She spun to the side, but the back of her knee banged up against a box of medical supplies. She tumbled over it, struck the floor, and tried to roll. But the doctor was too desperate, and she leaped over the box, landed on Diana’s chest, and pinned her to the ground with her knees.
The doctor’s hands snapped around Diana’s throat, hair falling loose from the woman’s bun and cascading around Diana’s face.
The doctor’s eyes were sightless. It looked as if she’d always been blind, as if rather than being doors to her soul the woman’s eyes were doors to nowhere.
As the doctor’s fingers tightened around Diana’s throat, she tried to throw the woman off.
She couldn’t. The Force pulsed into the woman’s head, and Diana could see it. It looked like hands reaching from nowhere, thrusting through the doctor’s psyche and controlling her muscles with all the ease of a computer directing the navigation of a cruiser.
Diana spluttered and tried to throw the doctor off.
She couldn’t.
So she screamed.
Just not with her lips. Diana Fenton might have just learned that she was a psychic, but her whole life, something had known about her powers. And right now as the life was choked out of her, she used her mind like she never had before.
Help. Help me, she begged, sending the message out on every mental frequency. It was like a distress call going out to all nearby vessels.
As the doctor’s fingers tightened around Diana’s throat, the Force tried to push into her harder than ever. Diana felt herself being pulled back into that memory, and this time she knew that no matter how hard she fought, she would not break free again.
It was over.
It was—
Just when she almost gave up, she felt him.
Sampson.
Something slammed into the closed door of the med bay. The doors were protected and made of thickened, smart metal, but that didn’t matter. A protrusion of a fist blasted through.
The doors buckled with another kick, and Sampson rolled in.
He didn’t need a second – even a split second – to assess the situation. He knew precisely where his target was. He barreled toward the doctor just as the woman tried to get to her feet. She kept a grip around Diana’s throat, and she dragged Diana up like a child with a doll.
Sampson didn’t pause. He leaped up a console, flipped, and rounded on the doctor with a kick so vicious, it could have snapped a tree in half. It cracked the doctor’s sternum, sending her hurtling back several meters until she flopped still against the wall.
… It was over.
No. This wasn’t over. The war was just beginning.
“Sampson?” she whispered through a crushed throat.
Sampson buckled to his knees beside her. His emotion was raw and seemed carved across his face as if somebody had ground his flesh with a grater. “Diana. God, you’re okay,” he said. He didn’t ask – he stated it. As his gaze darted over her body, it seemed… seemed as if he could stare through.
All of the suspicions that had raced through Diana’s mind while she’d rested on that medical bed came to the fore. “You… you’re like me? You can see things?”
“I don’t know what happened.” He brought a hand up and pressed his rigid, white fingers against his temple. “But if you’re talking about the ability to,” he swallowed stiffly, his Adam’s apple pushing tightly against his torn collar, “see through matter,” he could barely push the word see out of his lips, “then yes. I… thank you. I’m assuming you’re the one who gave me this power?” As he spoke, it was clear a part of him couldn’t believe what he was saying. But at the same time, it was apparent that Sampson, just like her, had a sufficiently elastic mind to move on anyway.
As he helped her up, one firm, warm hand pressed between her shoulder blades and the other clutched tightly around one of her hands, she shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happening. Just—”
“That the Force is on their way,” he admitted in a quiet, almost dead tone.
She looked into his eyes. He looked into hers.
She couldn’t help it anymore, and she threw herself at him, collapsing her arms around his back. She wasn’t the only one to throw herself into the embrace. They met halfway as Sampson gave in to the same desire.
As he locked his arms around her and she locked hers around him, it felt like they pushed through this growing storm and found a point of calm – a singular anchor in the chaos surrounding them.
She breathed hard, her chest pushing against his as she shoved to her knees. “What’s happening to the Academy? It’s… falling, isn’t it?”
He pulled away, though he seemed reluctant, his fingers lingering on her shoulder and hand. “It’s under attack,” he admitted in a professional tone, “but it hasn’t fallen yet.”
She breathed so hard, trying to struggle past her half-strangled throat, it felt like she’d lose consciousness. But she couldn’t do that.
She had to help.
So she unsteadily pushed to her feet, every movement reminding her that she’d just been pumped full of sedatives.
Sampson was there for every step. He ticked his head to the side, assessing the medical equipment in the room, his gaze darting right past every dead body. He saw them – she knew that – but she also respected that right now he had to concentrate on those who were still living.
After a few seconds, he found what he was looking for, and he dashed off. He accessed a storage cupboard under a warped console and pulled something out. He returned to her with quick, squeaking steps as his boots left scuff marks on the now mangled floor.
Without explaining what he was doing, he injected something into her neck, his thumb extending her throat back with a gentle touch.
“What’s—” she began. “It’s to heal the damage to my throat so it doesn’t swell and choke me, ha?”
“You figured that out?”
“… No, that’s what you’re thinking,” she said quietly.
Sampson stopped administering the drug, and his hand fell loosely to his side. He looked right at her. There seemed to be so much he needed to say. No – that wasn’t an appearance – that was a fact.
There was a wealth of secrets they had to share with each other.
They just didn’t have the time.
When he opened his mouth to ask a question, a new alarm blared through the building. It was so high-pitched, Diana shrunk to the side as she brought up a hand and clamped it over her ear. “What the hell is that?”
It took Sampson several seconds, his wide eyes darting from left to right as he accessed some memory. “Dammit,” he spat, the words splitting from his lips, “it’s the fire alarm.”
“Fire? Where?”
He didn’t access his wrist device or his holographic armor. Instead, she watched as he darted his eyes down then up.
… And that confirmed what he’d already said. He could see through matter, just like her. And maybe he could do a better job, because within several seconds, his gaze locked a few meters to the left. “It’s two floors down. Dammit, they’ve attacked the power generators to the building.”
“Are we safe? Is there going to be an explosion?”
“No,” he said after a considered thought. “It will—”
The power cut out. Most of the consoles in the room were already destroyed, but now the lights clicked off with a buzz.
They were left in the dark. Technically.
It took no time for her mind to adjust, for it was her mind and not her eyes that could see now.
She pushed a hand forward, and before she could overthink the move, clasped his.
He readily accepted, tightening his sweaty fingers around hers. He held on for dear life as if, even if hundreds of Barbarians assailed him, there was no way he would lose his grip on her.
“Come on,” he said in a harsh whisper.
“Are we getting out?”
He shook his head. “No. We have to save the Academy. If we don’t—”
“… Then we’ll lose the war with the Force,” she said slowly.
He looked at her sharply. “Can you read every single thought in my mind?”
She paused, then she shook her head. Confusion overcame her as she brought up a hand, dug her palm into her temple, and suddenly appreciated how terrifying this was.
She could see through matter, for God’s sake. She could—
Sampson tenderly reached up, grabbed her wrist, and pushed her hand down. “Don’t overthink anything at this stage. The first few weeks after finding out you’re a psychic are the most confusing. And it’s natural not to be able to read every single thought you come across. Heck, reading thoughts is one of the hardest things you can do. Most psychics glean people’s thoughts through their emotions. It’s also…” he hesitated then gave a gruff laugh, “frowned upon to read people’s thoughts directly. But I guess all the rules are about to change, aren’t they? Because we are at war now.”
She crumpled her lips in, tears streaking down her cheeks. “So the Force….” She didn’t even know what she wanted to say.
She didn’t need Sampson to confirm that the Force were coming. Every single fiber of her being knew that. Her heart pulsed with that fact, her bones rang with it, and every milliliter of blood that beat around her body carried that truth.
He pushed a hand over his face, dislodging the grime. His fingers shook. It was a slight tremble, but it was still there. “I don’t know where this knowledge about the Force is coming from. You probably know more than me.” His gaze flashed up to her eyes hopefully. “All I know is the Force definitely exist – I can feel them somehow. Forest has all but confirmed it, anyway. The Force appear to be on their way. This is their first battle.”
“The first of many,” she confirmed quietly.
“All I really know,” he brought up a hand and patted his chest, the thump ringing through the room, “is if we give up the Academy—”
“Then we’ll be handing them the Milky Way,” she finished his thought.
They looked at each other.
She longed for the chance to tell him everything. To stare into his eyes and reinforce she was no longer alone.
They didn’t have time. No one did.
Sampson tilted toward the door. “Can you run? That drug I gave you should have dealt with any potential bruising and swelling in your throat and flushed away the effect of the sedatives in your system.”
Diana experimentally pushed forward, relying on her own steam instead of Sampson’s as she reached the door first. Her muscles pumped, and though there was a fatigued, foggy headache pushing through her brain like a cloud, she could move.
“Good. We’ve got 25 minutes,” Sampson acknowledged as he skidded through the door.
“Until what? Wait, I can just read—” she began.
“If you’re about to read my mind to get your answer before I say it, don’t bother. Every time you try to read someone’s mind, it takes energy. As a psychic, one of the most important things you can do is to safeguard your mental energy. I don’t know what’s happening here,” he said in a choked wheeze, “but the Force seem to be going after psychics first. I fought an infected cadet, and he told me to my face that psychics will be the first to go.”
The coldest chill she’d ever felt forced its way down her back as if someone had dragged her across an ice shelf. She shivered so hard, Sampson wrapped his hand further around her elbow to shore up her balance.
“… You’re right. They need to go after psychics first. Because we can… we can….” Facts kept slipping through her consciousness like water through a cupped hand. “Why can’t I remember? I know somehow that I know the answer to this.”
“Don’t push yourself,” Sampson said flatly, his voice echoing sharply with all the force of an order. “This is the most critical stage of your development as a psychic. You’ve gone through a significant trauma,” he admitted in a choked wheeze, “and your mind has to heal. Plus, we don’t know what we’re going to face out there. Safeguard your mental energy,” he warned again.
She managed to nod as they continued to run together.
She was in a medical gown, she had no shoes on, and despite the fact there was technically a fire raging two floors down, it was starting to get freezing in here. When the power had cut out, so had the heat, and this far underground, the smart concrete carried the cold.
Her teeth started to chatter.
“We’ll find you some clothes,” he promised.
She shook her head, her loose hair tumbling over her shoulders. “We need to focus on saving the Academy. But how the hell do we do that?”
“How much do you know, Diana?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry… but—”
“Sampson, what is it?”
He reached behind him. He was wearing a magnetic backpack of some description that he’d presumably stolen off a downed combat officer.
She assumed it was full of weapons. She could see a long rifle pushing out of the top.
As he rummaged in it, flexible enough to reach behind without pulling it off his back, he snagged hold of something. He pulled it out.
She knew what it was long before he held it out to her.
The lights weren’t on, and it was pitch black down here, but with her second sight, she could see.
It was her diary.
… She’d been right, then? He’d found it, and somehow it had kept him safe.
They heard a scream far off, but Sampson still slowed. “Diana…” he trailed off, his voice quiet, every syllable nothing more than a shaky hiss.
“… This diary is important to you, isn’t it? Somehow you’re connected to what happened to my family,” she acknowledged. “You have a history with Baxan A just like me.”
He came to a complete stop. He stared at the wall, and he looked like a man who’d been switched off. She didn’t for a second fear that the Force had reached into his mind and infected him.
She felt her hand reflexively tighten into a fist just as one of his did the same. He was holding onto his emotion for dear life.
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice croaky. “I’m connected to the dig site on Baxan A. My brother… he died there.”
“James,” she said. “James Ventura. I should’ve figured it out. You’re Sampson Ventura, so of course your brother was James,” she remonstrated herself.
He looked at her sharply. Despite the fact there was no light down here, with her second sight she could see perfectly as Sampson locked his gaze on hers. She’d said it before, but she’d say it again – he didn’t have the most stunning irises, but the way he used his eyes more than made up for it.
As he stared at her, she saw his vulnerability, his need, and something else.
… It was almost as if she was staring through the adult Sampson all the way back to a young boy – a boy whose life had crumbled the day he’d found out his brother had been killed in the same attack that had taken her parents.
He hardened his jaw. “There’s something you need to know about the dig site – if you don’t already know.”
“The wall,” she said so quietly, she doubted he’d be able to pick it up. She couldn’t afford to say it any louder. It was now abundantly clear that the Force were trying desperately to get to her to find out information about what was behind that wall. Though she trusted Sampson, she had no idea if there were any listening devices nearby.
“What? What wall?” Sampson looked confused.
She pressed close to him so even if there was a listening device, it wouldn’t be able to pick up her hushed tones. “The wall at the dig site. I think… I think the Force need to know what’s behind it. They’ve been pushing into my mind to find out. It’s what Bequelia wanted, too. Before you saved me from the med bay, that doctor was trying to psychically remove the memory from my head. I think that… as crazy as it sounds, I think my ability to see through things,” she said in a raspy voice, “could be used—”
“To see through that wall.” Sampson brought up a hand and locked it on his head. It seemed as if he was trying to keep his mind in his skull with nothing more than his fingers. It took a few seconds until he dropped it. He looked right at her again, and if she thought his gaze had been intense before, now it was like twin burning suns. “It’s not the wall I need to talk to you about – before you mentioned it, I didn’t even know it existed. It’s infection Zero. Do you know—”
She started to shudder. It was a visceral, violent convulsion that pulsed up from her stomach and spread like a fire through her limbs.
“Diana.” Snapping close, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You okay?”
Before he could drag her back to the med bay to figure out what was wrong with her, she forced herself to nod.
“You know what Infection Zero is, then? Did Admiral Fenton tell you?”
She shook her head. “No. My reaction was just instinct, I guess. I… Infection Zero is what’s happening here, isn’t it? It’s what’s decimating the Academy, right?”
“No, it’s a variant. We don’t understand what this is exactly,” he choked as he gestured a hand to the side, clearly indicating the devastation blasting through the Academy, “but it’s close enough that it has to be related. Infection Zero… no one really knows what it is.”
“It’s the Force. It’s the means by which they infect people and turn them into their own soldiers,” she answered automatically as if she’d known that fact her whole life.
Sampson paled. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged, fear tightening her features. “I don’t know,” she rasped.
“… It’s okay.” His fingers clenched around her shoulder as he pulled her closer. “We’ll figure it out later. We’ve got,” he ground his teeth hard, “22 minutes to stop this. Do you know anything else about Infection Zero?” When it came time to say Infection Zero, he lowered his voice, keeping his tone hesitant as if he was concerned that the mere mention of those two words would send her into a fit again.
She dragged her fingernails across her brow like she was trying to dig into her brain to find the facts he needed. But they just weren’t there. She gave a miserable sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything else. I don’t seem to be in control. Facts just keep surfacing through my mind like someone else buried them there. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. There has to be a way to save the Academy. We’ll find it – I can promise you that. There’s something you need to know about Infection Zero, though. Whatever it touches, it infects. It can infect people through armor, no matter how advanced it is.”
She looked at him. Then she looked at her own hands. “Then why aren’t we infected?”
If Sampson hadn’t already ground to a stop, he would’ve slammed on his brakes like a cruiser setting its inertia fields to full. She watched as his lips wobbled open. “That… makes no sense. I,” he brought his hands up and stared at them, “assumed that the only reason I wasn’t infected was because of my holographic armor. No,” he suddenly corrected himself as he looked at her, “it… as crazy as it sounded, I thought it had something to do with your diary. I thought maybe it somehow provided me with more time, enabling me to touch infected for longer without the Force reaching my mind.”
She found herself shaking her head. “No. It wasn’t my diary.”
“No?”
“We are immune,” she stated flatly.
There was a long pause. Or at least as long as Sampson could afford. “That makes no sense, Diana. No one and nothing is immune to Infection Zero. It can decimate anything that is alive, from humans to plants.”
“We are immune,” she repeated firmly.
“Diana….” Whatever he wanted to say, he dropped it. He gazed at his hand again then over to her.
She stared back at him unflinchingly.
“If we somehow are immune,” he choked over those words, “I still don’t know how to use that to our advantage. How the hell do we save the Academy?”
“Why don’t we knock everyone out?” she suggested. This wasn’t the power in her mind rising up and providing her with that suggestion. This came from Diana herself – her own intuition and her own training and intelligence.
Sampson went to shake his head, but he stopped. He looked at her seriously. “Everyone in the Academy all at once?”
She nodded. “I haven’t seen the infection like you have. I’ve been lying on that bed in the med bay while you’ve been running through the Academy, seeing everything firsthand. But that doctor who assaulted me stopped when you knocked her out.”
“Everybody I’ve fought stopped when I knocked them out. While a full-blown Infection Zero can operate a person’s body without their mind, obviously this variant still needs them conscious,” he admitted, his gaze darting left and right as he thought through this possibility with more hope. He brought up a hand and grabbed his chin, his fingers digging in hard. “What you’re suggesting is going to be hard, though.”
“Can’t you call Forest? Surely there’s something she can do?”
“Maybe at the beginning of the attack there might’ve been something she could do, but now her forces are too spread thin. I imagine the attack on the power station,” he tapped his foot on the floor, indicating the fire below them, “was designed to stop large-scale attacks just like this. The Force seem to be one step ahead of us at all times. In order to enact your plan, we’re going to have to get—”
“To the top floor of the science block,” she volunteered.
“Why? I was going to suggest getting back into the command building and trying to access the computers to initiate a variant of the Endgame Maneuver.”
“We head to the science block,” she commanded unabashedly, despite the fact Sampson was the commander here, not her. “There’s a device being built up there that can help us. It’s kind of a distributed matter generator. Theoretically, we could use it to disperse a drug anywhere in the Academy all at once – through all matter and any energetic barrier.”
She could see that Sampson wanted to disagree with her, but his brow crumpled, and she just knew he was reminding himself that while she might not be the best cadet, she was a heck of a science student. “You sure that’ll work?”
“We’ll make it work,” she promised.
That seemed to be good enough for him.
Together they turned, and together they ran.
They came across more infected. Sampson had already handed her a gun, and as one, they stunned anyone they could.
It was horrible. Devastating in a way she’d never been prepared for. As they sprinted through those halls together, coming across people whose minds were crushed, Diana felt despair on a level the human mind shouldn’t be able to comprehend.
It was the despair of someone who’d built a civilization only to see it crumble. The despair of someone who’d had a family only to see them stolen from their arms. The despair of a mind that had lived its life only to see that life robbed out from underneath it.
Tears stained her cheeks, and she made absolutely no attempt to dry them.
She could be glad of one thing. Sampson was trained. Exceptionally well trained. His skills went way beyond those of any other soldier she’d ever met, and that included the special commanders who worked under her father’s command.
She understood it came down to the fact Sampson was psychic. But it was more than that – he seemed willing to sacrifice anything to get his mission done.
He’d already returned her diary to his backpack, but for whatever reason, she got the impression that he’d prefer to be holding it against his chest.
It gave him warmth… didn’t it? Reassurance. Hope. A sense that, despite how dark the situation had become, they could find a way back into the sunlight once more.
Diana didn’t push those assumptions away, because they were more than wild flights of fancy. She knew it with the power of a psychic.
They fought their way up to the second level of the basement.
There, they encountered true chaos. A few remaining uninfected officers were fighting back wave after wave of cadets.
Diana had never been one for horror movies, but she’d seen a few zombie flicks in her time. They did not touch on this. Zombies were dead. These people were alive, but their minds had been shredded.
Maybe it was her psychic skills – maybe it was something else – but she could feel the pain of every soul she passed, and it almost robbed her of her ability to stand. If it weren’t for Sampson’s firm grip, she would’ve toppled over and succumbed to the soul-crushing horror.
And maybe if it weren’t for hers, he would’ve done the same.
It was worse for him, after all. She was an untrained psychic – but he would know precisely what he was facing.
“Almost there,” he said as he shoved her to the side and pressed up against a wall to their left. With their backs against it, they quietly waited as two mindless cadets ran past.
It wasn’t until the cadets ran several meters down the corridor that Sampson twisted out from behind cover and shot them both.
The stun bullets exploded over their flesh, sparks of blue and white crackling up their uniforms as they lost their balance and face-planted the cracked concrete.
Sampson didn’t need to reach a hand out to her and tell her to move.
She darted out of cover first. She brought her gun up, instinct blaring in her mind. She started firing long before two infected officers sprinted around a corner. They were close enough that, had they reached her, they would have tackled her to the ground. She fired, point-blank in their faces. The stun bullets thrust them back, sending them skidding several meters.
“Good aim,” Sampson commended her as he reached her side, his gun held tightly in his fast grip as he twisted his equally tight neck muscles to the left. He surveyed the corridor. She could tell that he wasn’t just using his psychic skills and his training – she felt a tingling energy building around his eyes as he evidently tried to see through this scene.
… See through.
That’s what Diana had been doing all these years. Whenever she’d pushed herself to that point of calm she’d felt between matter and not in it, this is what she’d been doing.
Guilt assailed her as she realized that if only she’d pushed further into this skill before, maybe she wouldn’t be here now. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening. Maybe she could have stopped it—
“Don’t think of it. I don’t know what you’re thinking – but I can feel that it’s undermining your emotions. Push it away. Do not make any assumptions now. It’s dangerous. This is a pressured situation. Don’t waste your mental energy. Plus, any conclusion you make now won’t be reliable. Not with your emotions this chaotic.”
She smiled. Sampson twisted to the side and shot another infected cadet, but she still smiled. Without him, she would’ve given up.
With him, they’d get through this.
“Come on, we’ve got to—” Sampson didn’t get a chance to finish.
The wall beside him exploded, massive chunks of concrete spinning out in a halo of death.
“Sampson,” she shrieked. Before she could throw herself forward, he rolled and flipped, the explosion furling around him like a cloak.
He pushed over to her, grabbed her around the middle, and forced her to the side, bringing up his arm and batting away a massive chunk of stone before it could strike her. “Holographic armor, remember,” he said smoothly as he tugged her forward. “We really need to get you some shoes,” he added.
He hadn’t seen her feet, but obviously he’d read her pain, as chunks of burning stone had dashed against her toes, and the flesh was now raw and red.
“I think the Force know what we’re doing, and they’re trying to stop us,” she whispered as they turned around the corner and saw the elevators.
It was fraught, and infected cadets spilled everywhere like warring ants.
“I can guarantee the Force knows what we’re doing,” he spat back, his voice hard. He pressed his shoulder against a lip of the wall, counted under his breath, then spun to the side. He rolled, and throughout the move, he fired. Somehow, he had the coordination and sheer ability to predict his targets’ paths – and he shot five cadets by the time he rolled to his feet.
They all twitched and fell to the floor, motionless.
“The Force will try to stop us any way they can. There’ll be heavy resistance,” she explained.
“There always is. Just promise me that if I get you to the top floor, you can do this.”
She nodded. “There’s synthesis equipment up there, so we’ll be able to create a nerve-blocking agent that will be able to knock everyone out. I’m not a doctor, though – I don’t know about the dosage.”
“We’ll find a doctor. If we can’t, I’ll figure it out myself. But—”
“You’re about to ask me what happens after we knock everyone out, aren’t you? I don’t know. I don’t honestly know if there’s any way to bring these people back,” she acknowledged in a choked voice. “But I think there might be.”
Sampson turned to her, firing over his shoulder and not looking at his target as he stared at her in shock. He shook his head, the move hard. “No. There’s no way we can bring people back when their minds are this crushed—”
“There has to be a way. I think in the last Force war, they used a virus like this. But the Force were pushed back last time.”
“That doesn’t mean that the ancient races who defeated them back then found a cure for this infection. For all we know, it decimated them just as it’s decimating us now. Heck, maybe the Force invented this virus in the last stages of the ancient war and never had a chance to properly deploy it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, Sampson – I just know that there is a way to cure these people.”
Sampson opened his mouth to fight her again, but he stopped. He pressed his wrist over his lips, wiping his saliva away and sending a grimy dirt mark dragging across his chin.
There was a scream from behind him, and he twitched to the side, pressing down to his knees and rolling again as he fired at three infected officers.
By the time he made it back to his feet, he shook his head one last time then stopped. “How could you cure it?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed her fingers through her hair. It was so knotty. She had been rolling about on the floor, after all. She knew she looked like hell, but she guaranteed she felt worse. Though Sampson had treated the injuries to her throat and given her a drug to fight back the effects of the sedatives, she felt like she’d been thrown about like a ragdoll.
“We need to keep moving.” He wouldn’t give her time to rest.
Fair enough – they couldn’t afford it.
The floor suddenly shook, pitching so violently, she was thrown to the side. Sampson wrapped an arm around her middle, pulling her off her feet as he locked his boots down. She felt his holographic armor making a perfect magnetic seal with the metal beams beneath the floor. It kept him steady as the entire level buckled like a wave.
Just when she thought the ceiling would give in, it stopped. Rubble fell down, but the whole floor above didn’t flatten them.
“What the hell was that?” she stuttered.
“It came from….” He turned his head to the side, his eyes opening wide as he used his second sight. He swore. “Dammit, half the accommodation block just fell.”
She squeezed her hand over her mouth. “What? How many cadets were inside? How many—”
“It’s impossible to tell. But I don’t think there were that many people in there,” he admitted as his brow condensed tightly over his eyes and he pushed all of his attention into his second sight.
“We have to end this, Sampson. Before there’s any more damage.”
“Then come on.” He secured his hand around hers as he pulled her forward.
Just before they could reach the now deserted elevator, he stopped, skidded to the side, broke her grip, and shifted over to a downed cadet.
She was wearing boots – reinforced boots. It looked as if she’d been in a combat lesson before this mess had begun.
Without hurting the comatose cadet, he pulled the boots off her.
Diana let her knees buckle underneath her as she sat heavily and extended her feet out to Sampson.
He shoved the boots on, his fingers quick as he accessed the controls on their sides. In a few precise movements, the boots locked into place, shrinking until they fit her perfectly.
She shoved to her feet, twisted to the side, and pounded her fist against the controls that would open the lifts.
… They buzzed, but that was it.
“I thought the lifts were on a completely different circuit to the rest of the power in this section?” Sampson spat.
She went to pound her fist against the door controls once more, frustration getting the better of her.
“No,” he screamed.
He wrenched her to the side, pulling her down and under him as he protected her with the bulk of his back.
The doors exploded, a hail of hot molten metal spitting out in every direction.
Diana expected to be torn apart, but she wasn’t. She felt as Sampson extended his holographic armor to her. It spread around her like a loving embrace, and it was the only thing that kept her alive.
As the rubble settled, he got to his feet, pulling her with him.
They turned to stare into the elevator shaft. Because that’s all it was. The elevator had been obliterated, and there was nothing but chunks of mangled metal left over.
“Dammit.” He warily walked closer to the shaft, stopped with his boots over the edge, and tilted his head up.
“Can we climb up there?”
“I guess we have to. Hold on,” he commanded as he secured a hand around hers.
She wanted to tell him that she’d been holding on her whole life. Holding on and waiting for him.
That wasn’t a romantic thought, though. It was just… right.
From the moment she’d met Sampson, she’d had a connection with him. Even if she hadn’t recognized it.
She just hoped that connection would last as the Force threw every weapon they had her way.
Sampson investigated the shaft for several more seconds, his gaze narrowed.
She could feel that while he relied on his armor’s scanners, most of the calculations he made simply came from his own intelligence and experience. Both of which were considerable.
There was no one else she’d rather be with right now, even her father.
… Thinking about her father sent a cold chill skidding down her back. She just hoped that wherever he was he was safe.
She knew that he’d survived the assassination attempt and that he’d undergone surgery – she’d heard the doctors talking about it.
He just… Her dad had to live. Because Admiral Fenton would be needed.
“You okay?” Sampson frowned as he jerked his head around, realizing something was wrong with her before he even locked his gaze on her.
“Just—”
“If you’re thinking about your father, stop. It will be fine. Admiral Fenton is one of the strongest soldiers the Coalition’s ever had.”
She breathed hard. “How did you—” she began.
In a rare moment of levity, Sampson smiled as he tapped a single finger to his temple. “How did I know what you were thinking? I’m a psychic, remember. Now let’s go.” He offered a hand to her.
Despite the situation, her stomach had a chance to lurch. She’d been close to Sampson – she’d been wrapped up in his arms – but there was something more intimate about the way he stretched his palm toward her.
Despite the fact she had no time to waste, she hesitantly placed her hand in his. He crumpled his fingers around hers and pulled her close. “I’m going to have to hold you as I climb. It’ll be okay – I can scale the shaft easily with just two feet and one hand. Holographic armor is built to do the incredible, after all.”
She didn’t bother to reply. She just let herself feel his warmth – even through his armor – as he did as promised and pinned her against his chest.
Sampson was….
Everything she’d been waiting for.
A rock, an anchor, a place to hide as the storm raged around her.
She didn’t say a word of that – and she never would. She closed her eyes.
He did as promised – and he managed to climb, despite the fact he only used one hand. He punched his fingers into the wall, his holographic armor more than strong enough to allow him to push through the metal with all the ease of someone smearing butter on toast.
He didn’t grunt once. He simply concentrated. She could feel it. It was like his mind was buzzing – like it was this hot ball of energy that was close enough to touch. So close, she felt herself reaching out to it instantly.
Sampson stiffened. It was a wriggling move as if someone had just traced a finger down his back. “Ah, you probably shouldn’t do that.”
“What? What am I doing?”
“… You’re trying to touch my mind, right?”
She grew quiet. He’d been able to feel that?
“Just… don’t distract me,” he said.
It was clear he wanted to add something more, probably another reprimand that, just like reading other people’s thoughts, she shouldn’t reach out and touch their minds.
He didn’t. She felt his attention sweeping outward as he concentrated again.
She just turned her mind inward.
… If they managed to do the impossible and stopped the attack on the Academy, what then?
A part of her knew the answer to that. Then would be the real war with the Force. Her life and everyone else’s in the entire Coalition had just been turned upside down. There was no point in trying to predict what would happen next – they could only fight as one.
And yet, her mind kept ticking back to that same question.
What would happen to her?
She was a psychic. And as Sampson had already said, the Force would go after psychics first.
More than that, she knew she could help. That sense she’d had her whole life that she was just waiting for the opportunity to rise up told her that her time was now.
She just didn’t know what it was that she was meant to do.
“Whatever you’re thinking about, clear your mind,” he said, despite the fact he should be concentrating.
They’d made it halfway up the elevator shaft. It was obvious that Sampson was determined to use the shaft to get all the way to the top of the building.
He wouldn’t get that opportunity.
Something suddenly echoed through the shaft, banging down from above, sending a vibration pitching through the metal. Despite the fact it wasn’t enough to loosen Sampson’s grip, she felt fear spike through him as he darted his head up and back.
“Goddammit,” he spat. Another shake shuddered so violently through the shaft, it loosened a panel to their left, sending it spiraling down like a leaf being blown off a tree.
It took a long damn time for it to clang against the bottom of the shaft.
“What the hell is that?” Diana begged.
“I dunno. I think it’s some kind of—” he began.
She didn’t need him to answer.
She darted her head back, and she saw something come into view. It punched right through the side of the shaft about four floors up.
It took her mind a moment to recognize what it was.
It was a spider drone.
That might sound small, but this one sure as heck wasn’t.
They were a type of robot on pincerlike legs that could climb up the sides of buildings, plunge down shafts, and run so quickly over the land, they would put a cheetah to shame.
They were a combat robot, specifically, a Kore combat robot. She’d only learned about them in class; she’d never seen one.
Until now.
“Hold on,” Sampson screamed.
He’d been pinning her, but now she wriggled around, locked her arms and legs tightly around his back, and freed up his hand.
He needed it.
The combat robot threw itself down the shaft toward them.
Sampson leaped two meters up, using a blast of speed to get out of the robot’s way as it sliced one of its pincerlike legs into the side of the shaft, the metal buckling like someone stabbing a leaf with a pin.
The screech echoed through the shaft, clanging in her head like someone ringing bells in her eardrums.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t move. She kept her arms locked around Sampson as she stared at the terrifying sight of the robot.
It was about the same length and width of the shaft. That put it at easily five-meters-square.
It had fallen approximately two meters down from Sampson. As it reached one of its pincer arms up, Sampson jumped. He just didn’t jump up the shaft. Instead, he pushed his feet into the wall, and he flipped backward.
Diana couldn’t help it anymore, and she screamed, the lurching, pitching cry echoing through her chest as Sampson seemingly gave up and let them drop to their deaths.
But he sure as hell hadn’t given up.
Just at the last moment, he twisted to the side, and as the robot tried to skewer him with its pincer arm, he grabbed it, flipped around it, and jumped onto the robot’s back.
She had no idea what Sampson had planned. Heck, she had no idea if he knew what he was going to do, but she had to trust him.
The robot brought up its arms, using only two to latch onto the side of the shaft as it used the others to try to attack Sampson.
He showed how lithe and quick he was as he rolled to the side, jumping over the spider’s smooth back and dodging every single blow.
She didn’t know how he did it. He was a psychic, but this was a robot – it wasn’t like he could read its moves. All he could do was react. And every instinctual reaction kept them both alive.
For now.
The robot suddenly changed strategies, clearly realizing that it couldn’t win like this.
She felt a charge starting to build up in its back.
She expected Sampson would leap off. He didn’t.
It was as if he’d been waiting for this. He pitched down to his knees.
Though she hadn’t had a clue what he was doing, now her intuition rose up to meet her, and she dropped off him, twisting to the side.
He didn’t stop her and instead used the room she’d given him to start pounding on the hull of the spider bot.
He slammed one of his fists into the metal so hard, it looked as if his arm had been shot from a gun.
She could see his holographic armor for the first time, and it blasted up his arm in a green wave.
He slammed his fist into the spider’s hull one last time.
Something cracked.
The energy charge that had just been about to wipe them out faded away. She could feel the crackle discharging through the air as if someone had just blown away a lightning storm.
But the spider wasn’t done with them.
It snapped up one of its pincers and sent it spinning toward Sampson.
“Sampson—” she had a chance to scream.
He didn’t move. As he shoved one hand into the buckled hole he’d created, he brought his other around.
She had no idea about the limits of his holographic armor, but she could recognize that there was little that could fight hand-to-hand with a combat robot.
Little except for Sampson. Because he seemingly did the impossible, and his hand locked around the end of the pincer, holding it in place before it could skewer him.
She lay on her side, staring at him in wonder.
He continued to grapple with the pincer as he shoved his other hand far down into the belly of the beast.
Just as the spider brought up another pincer, Sampson reached something, and he pulled it out.
She watched his shoulder and elbow twitch as his bicep tightened. He had some kind of control crystal in his hand, and he crushed it, sparks spewing out everywhere.
The two pincers that had been ready to slice through him stopped several centimeters from his side.
There was a creak and a shudder.
“Move,” Sampson spat as he dropped his grip on the pincer and shifted toward her.
She let him scoop her off her feet as he leaped off the back of the spider.
It crumpled, its pincers falling out of the wall.
It tumbled down the shaft, smashing into the sides until, far below, it struck the base with an echoing clang.
“… What… what just happened?” Diana spluttered, even though she’d been there for every blow.
She’d never been in a fight so frantic.
No. She had.
Didn’t she fight this frantically every night?
Sampson opened his mouth, about to answer, but as he punched his fingers back into the wall and continued to climb, he stared down at her.
She’d wrapped her arms around his neck, so their faces were close enough to touch. There was nothing stopping him from staring right into her eyes. “What did you just think?” he asked in a shuddering voice.
His voice hadn’t trembled once during that fight, but now it seemed as if he’d been shaken to the core.
“What?”
“Diana – what did you just think?”
“I… just that…” she trailed off. It seemed like such a foolish thing to admit to him. Yes, she’d always had intense dreams. But—
“Tell me what you just thought,” he commanded, authority pitching through his voice again, but it was authority wrapped up in tender care.
“Just that I’ve always fought every night in my dreams. And I shouldn’t have been so surprised by the chaos of that fight—” she began, about to muddle through her explanation.
She felt as every single muscle in his body became as rigid as steel.
A wave of unparalleled terror pulsed through him.
She darted her head to the side and up. “What? Are you sensing more enemies? Is there another one of those spider drones?”
“What are you?” he asked abruptly, a distant but terrified edge to his voice.
Slowly, as if someone had sliced through the muscles of her throat, she tilted her head down and stared at him. “What?”
“What are you?” As he asked that, he narrowed his gaze and appeared to use his second sight.
Diana remained there, frozen.
An old fear rose in her mind, telling her that just like everyone else in her life, Sampson was about to abandon her. Because, just like everyone else in her life, he’d just found a reason to think she was a freak.
She breathed hard. She wanted to shove away from him, but to do that would be to commit suicide and tumble down the shaft to join the crushed robot below.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispered, her tone tight with fear.
Sampson appeared to pull himself together, and he locked his lips together hard, swallowing even harder. “It’s okay. I just swore I saw something, that’s all.” He started to climb again.
“Swore you saw what?” she pushed, even though all she wanted to do was forget the way he’d just looked at her.
“Never mind.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I should’ve reminded myself that you are in a vulnerable psychic position at the moment. You will be for weeks to come as your powers settle. So I can’t afford to unsettle you further.”
That was Sampson telling her to drop this. But she couldn’t drop it. “What did you see?” Her voice shook with fragility. Fragility and force.
Frustration boiled up deep from her belly and deep from her past.
Her whole life, Diana had been forced to question what she was. Was she just broken? A freak? A monster? Or something more?
As she’d grown older, she’d tried to bury those thoughts, but now they assailed her from every direction.
They couldn’t drown her this time, though. Because this time, she was sure she could get an answer. And that answer was in Sampson’s mind.
Before she knew what she was doing, she reached out to his psyche.
Sampson stiffened. “I told you not to do that, Diana,” he said in a strict tone. “It’s dangerous to you, and it’s dangerous to me.”
She felt like she’d just been slapped. She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I need to know what you think you saw.”
“It was nothing.”
“Sampson,” she practically shrieked in his face, “it wasn’t nothing. Now please tell me. I lost my family. My whole childhood was nothing but torture. Every night my dreams haunted me as I fought for my life and the Milky Way, holding back the Force—” she began.
His eyes widened. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for that. As if he’d withdrawn specifically to get her to reveal what she knew. “Go on,” he said in a tight voice.
Despite this intense conversation, he never stopped climbing. The sound of his fingers punching into the frame of the shaft echoed around her.
She felt cold. “You just lured me into saying that, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t lure you. I guided you. Sometimes it’s only through strong bursts of emotion – especially frustration – that you can remember hidden memories.”
Anger curled through her gut, but it didn’t last. She looked at him, and she saw his sincerity. He just wanted to help her figure out what she could.
And he had every reason to try considering her memories were key to what was going on here and finding a way to fight the Force.
The Force would do anything to get to her, do anything to uncover the secret buried in her memory and buried behind that wall.
She went to close her eyes.
“No, keep them open.” Sampson shoved his shoulder into her to get her attention.
“Why?”
“Because closing your eyes doesn’t necessarily sharpen your mind. Unless you know what you’re doing, it’ll just distract you into paying more attention to your emotions.”
“Then what do I do?”
“Look at me.”
“What?”
“Look right into my eyes, Diana Fenton.” For some reason, his voice was husky.
Despite the fact she’d all but forgotten she was in a fairly intimate position with Sampson Ventura, her arms wrapped around his and her body locked against his firm torso, that realization came back with a snap. Though a tingle was probably a more precise description.
Heat spread through her chest, but before it could reach her throat and cheeks, she practically swallowed one of her lips and bit it as hard as she could.
“Just look at me. Look right into my eyes,” he promised.
“… Are you about to use some kind of mesmer control on me?” she asked in a weak voice. If she spoke any louder, he’d be able to hear the waver in her tone.
“No. I’m just going to help you.”
“How?”
“Look into my eyes.”
She gave up. She looked right into Sampson Ventura’s gaze.
… As soon as she did, she confirmed the fact she kept repeating to herself. His irises were dull, and yet they were somehow brighter than any she’d ever seen at the same time. They weren’t particularly attractive, yet they were clearly the most attractive eyes she would ever see.
That seemed to sum up Sampson, didn’t it? He was a man of opposites. A man with a truly controlled mind and yet emotion deeper than any she’d ever felt. A soldier who seemed to be able to push on no matter the odds, and yet a man who’d almost lost it at the mere mention of her diary.
She found her body relaxing as she stared at him.
Relaxing wasn’t the right word. Unraveling was.
She’d never looked at anyone for as long as she was looking at him now. Being locked against his body was one thing. This? It was a level of intimacy she’d never felt.
Staring at someone unblinkingly, right up against their face – it was way worse than taking your clothes off.
As embarrassment threatened to flush her cheeks to the color of burning coals, she told herself to look away.
She stopped.
She couldn’t turn away anymore. She could no longer do only what was easy. She couldn’t hide her true self ever again.
She had to show herself. She wasn’t about to rip off her clothes, and yet, she felt more naked than she ever had. It was a bareness of the mind, of the emotions. For up this close to a psychic, Sampson would have almost unfettered access to her mental world.
She should care, but she didn’t.
She wanted to show him what she was.
“That’s it. That’s how you open your mind,” he encouraged. His voice was hard, but it didn’t blast out. It spread toward her like a strong grip.
She shuddered on the word open. She couldn’t help it. It reminded her of what Bequelia had done so many times. But Bequelia hadn’t tried to teach Diana to open up – the counselor had attempted to cut through Diana’s defenses, instead.
Now, Diana was learning the first lesson of a psychic.
She went to close her eyes, to center her attention, but she felt Sampson shake his head. He didn’t speak; he didn’t have to. She reminded herself that she wanted her eyes open, and her skin stretched as she pressed them wider.
She stared at Sampson.
Open, revealed, and there for him to see.
And then she felt it.
This force reached up from inside her. These memories. These rushing, powerful recollections. They blasted up her back and slammed into her head.
She couldn’t help it, and her eyes closed of their own accord as a gasp echoed from her lips.
“Diana? What happened? What did you see?”
What did she see?
… She could see her hands. But they weren’t her hands. They were larger and stronger and gripped in them was some kind of sword made wholly out of light.
She wanted to tear herself free of that memory, but it held her in place.
This was who she was – the hidden side of her soul she’d buried for years.
This was the real Diana Fenton.
She tried to shake her head as fear trembled through her heart.
“Whatever you’re doing – whatever you’re seeing – release into it. It’s the only way,” he said in a tight voice.
Release into it?
It was easier said than done. As she concentrated, grinding her eyes further closed, she started to lose awareness of her body, even though that should be hard considering how close she was to Sampson.
She didn’t feel like she was in the shaft anymore. She felt like she was standing with her feet on solid ground. She swore something was spinning around her middle. It wasn’t a belt – rather a flat circle of light that resembled one of the rings of Saturn.
She tried to open her real eyes. She couldn’t. She tried to turn, but it was too hard.
She was locked in this memory.
She brought up her hands again, and she saw that sword. It was brilliant, bleeding with a light that seemed impossible. It was so bright, it could cut through any darkness, no matter how thick.
As she stared at her hand, her fingers tightened. They gripped the sword as if they knew it – they knew it because they’d wielded it, time after time.
“What is this?” she whispered. “Where the hell did this sword come from?”
“Sword? What are you saying, Diana?” Sampson demanded.
She was surprised that his voice could reach into this memory. But it did, and his desperation focused her mind.
“I’m holding some kind of sword. It’s made out of light.”
“Electricity?” he tried.
“No, light. I… it looks like a trapped star,” she choked, knowing how stupid that sounded.
“What else do you see?”
“I’ve got something around my middle. It’s some kind of shield,” she realized.
“Where are you?”
She tilted her head up. She shifted her gaze around her. And there, in front of her, she recognized the wall.
“Baxan A. The primary dig room,” she choked.
Despite the fact she hadn’t been able to feel her real body, it came into sharp refrain as Sampson twitched violently.
She felt his fear wash over him.
“Baxan A?” His voice twisted.
“Yes. The wall is right in front of me.”
“What’s through it?”
“A time gate,” she answered.
A time gate.
It was a time gate.
That epiphany rocked through Diana. It tore down every wall in her mind. It flooded through her consciousness, pushing away everything in its path.
This was the secret the Force was after. For this was the only thing that could stop them.
And Diana was tasked to protect it.
That was her purpose. And she would rise up to meet it.
As that knowledge pulsed through her body, she flopped, falling unconscious against Sampson as he screamed her name.
She would wake, and when she did, she would be ready.