Diana Fenton
She felt him. She felt Sampson right through the walls. And she knew as he started running toward her.
She was finally awake, and though she had one hell of a pounding headache, everything was slipping into place. She didn’t need to struggle to remember a thing – it was right there in front of her, a horror show of nightmarish proportions.
The Coalition was at war. The Academy had been all but destroyed. And in front of her was a task like no other.
Though all she wanted to do was bring up her hands and stare at them, instead, she locked her gaze on the door and waited until Sampson pushed through.
She went to shove off her bed, but immediately two doctors pinned down her shoulders. “Don’t move,” one of them snapped.
“Diana,” Sampson breathed, so much relief flooding through his tone, it sounded like she was the only thing he cared about anymore.
Her face cracked with emotion. She didn’t need to show it, though, did she? Because even if she hid it right in the center of her chest, he’d be able to feel it.
“Sampson,” she called back. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he lied.
She didn’t need to tick her gaze over his holographic armor to see that patches of it were permanently crackling as if the shield was having trouble re-knitting itself. All she had to do was focus on his face and stare right through his eyes to appreciate he was anything but fine.
She pushed off the bed. This time, she didn’t let the doctors hold her in place. “I can stand,” she said. And she did.
Neither of the doctors attending to her looked happy, but they didn’t shove her back on the bed.
It was a good thing, because a second later, her father walked in. No, he jogged in as fast as his half-broken body could allow.
Her eyes immediately filled with tears as they ticked down to the cybernetic implants locked over his left side. She might not have been the best recruit, but she could conclude that for him to have an implant like that meant that the doctors hadn’t had time to heal his injuries properly.
“Dad,” she said, emotion crippling her.
She knew Fenton didn’t like it when she drew attention to their relationship while he was on duty. He wasn’t strict about it or anything, but she knew he had a role to play, and he couldn’t play father to a cadet while he was playing admiral to his soldiers.
Apparently now that didn’t matter, because he scooped his arms out wide, and Diana raced over. She locked her arms around his back and pressed her head against his chest, tears streaming down her face. “You’re alive. But you’re so injured.”
“I wouldn’t call this being injured. I’ve had far worse,” Fenton said in a falsely light tone. “I once had my leg ripped off by an Andean beast. This is child’s play.”
“Stop lying.”
He chuckled, but there was a tight edge to it. “You’re not reading my mind, are you?”
Maybe his words were meant to be a joke. They weren’t. So much fear shook through his tone, it sounded like it was strangling him.
Reluctantly, she pulled away, and she stared at her father.
He stared down at her. His expression looked as if someone had shattered it with a sledgehammer.
“What—” she began.
Impressions flooded through her consciousness.
They’d been talking about her. About her psychic powers and what was happening to her.
More than that, they’d been talking about her dreams, hadn’t they?
She took a step away from her father, her gaze unblinking as her lips parted open and her brow crumpled. “I’m sorry, dad.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” His voice was a twisted mess.
“There is. I’m sorry this happened to me.” It was a strange thing to say, and yet those were the only words that felt right.
Fenton looked as if he was about to break down, so she took another step away from him. Though all she wanted to do was reconnect with him, she could not undermine her father emotionally when it looked as if the entire Coalition was now resting on his shoulders.
Admiral Forest was standing behind Fenton, and ever since she’d walked into the room, she hadn’t moved her sharp, piercing gaze off Diana.
Diana now turned to face her. “You think I’m important to you, don’t you?”
“Yes, Cadet. But I don’t think it – I know it. How powerful are your psychic skills now?”
Diana swallowed. She wanted to say she had no idea. She wasn’t a trained psychic, after all, so she could hardly assess her own skills. But that would be lying; she couldn’t deny her power anymore. “I don’t know. But I seem to have the ability to throw my mind. I managed to disable some of those Vendet warriors remotely with… I don’t know what you would call it. Psychic blasts?” Every word she said became slower, her tone becoming tighter with fear.
It was one thing reconnecting to her father; it was another appreciating just what was happening to her.
She had no control. She felt like she was slipping under.
Just before that image could swallow her whole, Sampson took a step toward her. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
His presence was enough.
And so was her diary.
Her gaze suddenly snapped over to it.
Sampson jerked his head down, following her. He unhooked his fingers from the diary, the move reluctant. He handed it over to her.
With a shaking hand, she picked it up. Her fingers were sweaty by the time they locked over the now scuffed leather. It had clearly been rubbing up against various weapons and bombs in Sampson’s backpack. There were a few lines dragged over the old tanned hide, and she found her fingers tracing them distractedly.
“Sorry about that,” Sampson said.
She ignored him. She opened the cover, and there, staring back at her was her father. She smoothed her thumb down the page, tracking the lines of ink.
It felt as if she’d pushed her life into these drawings, her history, her emotions, everything. And as she touched them now, she felt their power.
Before Diana had known what she was, she’d pushed psychic energy into this diary, hadn’t she? And now she was coming into her psychic skills, she shivered as she realized just how much psychic power she’d impregnated these pages with.
It practically bled off the paper like someone cutting through corpses.
No, that was the wrong analogy. She hadn’t imbued these pages with a psychic wound. They were more like a battery she’d pumped her power into.
She continued to distractedly drag her fingers down the ink. She knew that everyone’s eyes were on her, but she didn’t care. This was a private moment between her and her dreams.
And as she traced her fingers over and over the image of her father, she felt her dreams sharper than she ever had before. More memories slammed into her, but rather than shake her off her feet, she just stood there like someone opening their arms to a storm.
Sampson shuddered, and as she stared at him out of the corner of her eye, she appreciated he could pick up what was happening to her psychically.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for this,” Forest interrupted. “Diana, do you know what you are?”
It was a hell of a question. If Forest had asked Diana even several hours ago, that question might’ve undermined her.
Diana finally pulled her hand off her father’s face, closed her diary, and nodded. “Yes. I… back on Baxan A, though I can’t remember everything that happened, I made contact with something called an angel.”
A tight silence spread through the room.
Diana breathed hard. “I think that angel’s inside me now.” She spread one hand wide and stared at her palm, her gaze tracing down her fingers, slipping along every whorl and every line marked on her skin.
“Can you contact that angel? Do you know what it knows? What information can you give us?” Forest barreled through every single question like a bull in a china shop.
Forest did not have time for pleasantries. She didn’t even have time to check on Diana’s mental health. Questions like this would undermine any ordinary psychic, let alone one as fresh and raw as Diana.
But that was the thing – no one had any time. Every second they stood here talking was a second where the Force took more of the Academy, undermining it like termites chipping away at a house’s foundations.
“I don’t remember everything,” Diana repeated. “Just flashes. But what you really want is a cure for the cadets and staff, right?”
Forest stood as straight as she could, her expectation washing off her in waves. “Do you have one?”
Diana went to shake her head, but she stopped. She cast her gaze to the side, and she stared at the wall.
“Are you,” her dad said, his voice tight, “staring through the wall?”
She shook her head. “I barely have that skill. Sampson can do it much better than I can. I’m just thinking.”
At the admission that Sampson had better second sight than she did, Diana watched as Forest stared calculatingly at Sampson.
If Sampson noticed, he didn’t care. Heck, if Sampson noticed anything that was happening here, he clearly thought it was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered to him was her.
The way he looked at her, the way his emotions surged – she felt….
She couldn’t finish that thought. Not here. She had to concentrate.
She tipped her head back, her messy hair trailing across her shoulders. She stared at the ceiling. “The Force create holes in people’s heads. That’s what these viruses are. They’re some kind of… I don’t know, some kind of spatial doorway that allows the Force to connect to people psychically. It’s the same way they control their soldiers.”
“They psychically control the soldiers outside?” Forest asked, her voice tight.
Diana nodded. Thoughts started to slip into place as she spoke. She didn’t have to force them; she just had to stare at the ceiling and think.
“Those soldiers, the Vendets,” she said definitively, “they’re grown. They’re some kind of genetic experiment that creates the perfect vessel for the Force to psychically control. None of them have their own minds. They just have this base level of aggression.”
No one asked how she knew this. They just waited.
She kept her head directed at the ceiling. It was that or drag her gaze down, and if she did that, she’d just end up staring at Sampson.
And if she did that, she’d have to give in to all the emotions plunging through her heart. She’d have to throw herself at him, wrap her arms around his back, and tell him over and over again that she was thankful for everything he’d ever done for her.
She pressed her lips together, squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them again. “If we can find a way to block those holes, we won’t just find a way to protect our people, we’ll be able to—”
“Launch a whole scale attack on those Vendet soldiers,” Forest finished for her. “Do you have any clues—”
“The neuro gel,” Sampson interrupted.
Diana finally dropped her head. She stared right at him. And together, they nodded.
“The neuro gel,” they repeated together.
“Neuro gel is toxic,” Forest reminded them needlessly. “How exactly would you suggest using it on our own people?”
“When I was in that armor,” Diana admitted with a shiver, “and it came in contact with neuro gel, it was like walls slammed down around my head.” She winced as she admitted that. She pressed her eyes closed and focused on the exact memory of the experience. It literally felt like someone had wrapped a massive chain around her entire body. It had chopped all her senses in half. As for her psychic skills – though she’d been able to use them, she understood that had simply been a factor of her power. Any other psychic in the same situation wouldn’t have been able to force their way through the effects of the neuro gel.
“It’s a possibility, but I need more. And I need it now,” Forest began.
“Curing our people can wait. But if neuro gel can stop those psychic soldiers out there, deploy it now,” Fenton ordered.
Forest clearly agreed. She took a step to the side, brought up her wristwatch, and typed on it. When she was done, she walked back over. “It will take at least five minutes to be able to synthesize the neuro gel required. How should we deploy it?” She looked right at Diana.
Diana stared at her feet as she thought. “Atomize it.”
“Neuro gel is toxic,” Forest repeated. “Any life that comes in contact with it—”
“You can replant trees, re-lay the turf, and clean the Academy. But with every second we waste, they are stealing our data. I came across several soldiers who were transporting the ripped-out contents of consoles. I don’t know what they were after, but whatever it is, I guarantee we don’t want to lose it,” Diana shot back.
Forest seemed convinced. “Very well. We’ll atomize it. That will push the Force back. For now. I want our people back, though,” she said, tight emotion twisting through her tone as if someone had suddenly grabbed their hands around a sponge and squeezed as hard as they could.
Diana brought up a hand and locked it on the side of her face. She trailed her fingers down until her nails dragged marks over her cheeks.
She could see that Sampson was staring at her. And she knew all he wanted to do was grab her hand tightly and hold it.
She stared at her feet rather than acknowledge his need. Do that, and she’d have to acknowledge her own needs. Like the fact she needed to draw him close. Like the desire to whisper thank you over and over again. Like the need to hold on to him and tell him that out of everyone she’d ever met, he was the only person who’d ever bothered to make a difference in her life.
She twisted her head to the side as a few tears threatened to touch her eyes. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what the precise toxic doses of neuro gel are. But I can tell you that for whatever reason, it blocks the Force’s ability to contact and control their agents. You could try… I don’t know, creating some kind of neuro gel barrier. You could set up force fields around our people, and between the shields you could pump in atomized neuro gel. It might work. It might not work.”
“But it’s worth a try,” Forest said. Again she shifted to the side. This time she had a low, muttered conversation with Fenton. When they were done, Forest stepped away as she typed her orders into her wristwatch.
… Which just left Diana standing there with her father and Sampson.
She wouldn’t describe this as awkward – just intense. Intense like 10 burning stars barreling down on her.
She knew all her father wanted to do was scoop her up, but so did Sampson.
And though she assumed neither of them had ever met, there was a distinct angry energy picking up between them.
Diana swallowed. “Dad—”
“I’ll get you out of this,” he promised. “Once our people have been cured and the Academy has been cleared, you’ll be fine.”
She stared at him. Slowly, being careful of every move, she shook her head. She didn’t blink once. “Dad, there’s no safe place you can hide me. The Force are after me. They know exactly what I am.”
Her dad crumpled. Not visibly. His knees didn’t cut out from underneath him. But his emotion just crumbled as if someone had soaked it in acid.
“Diana—” he began.
“It’s okay. I… as stupid as it sounds, I’ve always felt like my life was on pause. Since my parents were killed,” she said, her voice completely even, “I always felt like I was just waiting around. I guess I’m not waiting anymore.”
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to—”
“Nobody should have to fight. But we are in a war now, so everyone has to. I have a skill, dad. I’ve become something. And I need to help. Because if I don’t, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You’ve already sacrificed too much, Diana.”
He was right, and yet he was wrong. Because sacrifice came hand-in-hand with what it was you were trying to save. As the stakes rose, you needed to demand more of yourself, or you would never rise high enough to protect yourself and those you loved.
She tried to convey that principle to her dad now. Just not with words. She stared at him. She didn’t push her mind into his. She wouldn’t violate his privacy. But she stood there, open and there for him to see. Then Diana Fenton snapped a salute. It was weak and her wrist wobbled, but she meant it.
She thought her dad would keep pushing. He didn’t. He snapped a salute back, and his was the salute of an admiral to a cadet not a father to a daughter.
She smiled. Then she made the mistake of looking at Sampson. As their gazes locked, it felt like two hands reaching out and collapsing around one another.
When she’d met Sampson all those days ago now – though it felt like years – she hadn’t known that he would have such an effect on her.
If she had, when he’d sidled up to that window beside her and stared at her, she would’ve thrown her arms around his back, and she wouldn’t have wasted a second.
“Sampson,” she began.
“We need to discuss what happens next,” Forest interrupted. She walked back into the room. Though she stood taller, because she now had hope for her people, there was a look in the admiral’s eyes.
It was far-off. It looked as if she was staring right into the future. And it was a future that was more uncertain than any the admiral had ever faced.
“What do you know about the oncoming war, Diana?” Forest demanded. “What do you know about the angels? And what,” her voice bottomed out low as if the admiral were trying to carve a hole right through the earth to get to the Force, wherever they were, “do you know about the time gates?”
As soon as the admiral mentioned the time gates, Diana shivered. Dense energy raced over her shoulders, plunged down her back, and broke across her skin like sudden fire. She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, and breathed. “The time gates will help us fight the Force. There’s one behind the wall in the primary dig site on Baxan A. I didn’t know that until I remembered it recently. The Force were trying to use me to confirm where it was. I think,” she added.
“You think?” Forest challenged.
“Bequelia kept using our counseling sessions,” Diana said carefully, “to try to get me to open up, as she called it. When she attacked me, she tried to control my mind to make me stare through the wall. And,” Diana remembered in a flash, “she wanted me to stare into my dying father’s eyes.”
It was a gruesome detail, and while Forest just seemed confused, her dad looked like he wanted to smash something.
Sampson? Sampson felt like he was beyond rage. His hands were by his sides, and they were clenched into such tight fists, he could have shattered each one of his nails. “She did what to you?”
“It’s okay, Sampson. It’s in the past now. But she definitely wanted me to look into my dying father’s eyes for some reason. It’s almost as if she wanted to catch some reflection in them?” she realized.
“She might have been trying to confirm that you are an angel,” Forest tried. “Or perhaps she was attempting to confirm which angel you were.”
Diana looked at Forest sharply. “What does that mean?” Her voice shook.
“There are many angels. But there’s only one who is important to us. For there is only one who can open the time gates and provide us with a chance to defeat the Force. I am assuming that Bequelia was attempting to confirm which angel you were.”
“And which angel am I?”
Forest looked right at her. “If the legend has anything to go by, then you are the angel we need. You can open the gate, and only you can open the gate.”
Diana had tried to come to terms with what she was, but this was putting her on the spot, and she felt as if she’d suddenly been squeezed between two walls.
She locked her hands together, dug her nails in, and started to drag them up her palms. “Okay. But the counselor wasn’t the only person to attack me. All the infected I’ve come across have tried to push into my mind. The Force seem to want to use my ability to see through things. I think they want to get to that time gate. But I don’t understand.” Confusion suddenly swamped her. “If the Force were even a little suspicious that the time gate was on Baxan A, why wouldn’t they just go there and check for themselves?”
“Because they can’t get through that wall. Even they don’t possess the technology to destroy it. There is only one person in this room who can access that wall.” Forest didn’t bother to point out who that was.
Another cold slick of sweat slid down Diana’s shoulders, and it made her stand taller. It didn’t feel like she was being defiant in the face of great odds, however. It felt like somebody had suddenly grabbed her head and pulled like they were going to dangle her in the air.
She clutched a hand behind her back and dug her nails in until it felt like she would plunge them right through the center of her palm. “What’s a time gate, anyway?” Diana knew that she should already know the answer to this. She didn’t. Just like all of those other elusive memories of being an angel – she couldn’t grasp them. They were nothing more than faint impressions at the corners of her mind.
“A time gate will, theoretically, allow us to reconnect to periods throughout history. And in doing so, they will allow us to draw on the forces of the past. The Coalition, though strong, does not have the ability to fight the Force on its own.” As Forest spoke, she did so definitively. Her voice didn’t shake, and there was no indecision in her stance.
This was fact, not an assumption. The Coalition could not win on their own.
As that fact broke against Diana, she felt like collapsing her arms around her middle and falling down to her knees.
This was real. It was happening. And it was horrifying in every way.
“It’s okay,” Sampson said, reading her emotion. “If we can access the time gates, we’ve got a chance, right?” He turned to Forest.
Forest didn’t answer. She pressed her lips together and just stared at him.
So Sampson looked right at Fenton. “We’ll have a chance, right?”
Fenton just looked at his daughter.
Diana stared at her hands.
She tried to access her memories. She tried not to be scared of the fact that every night she’d been someone else. More than anything, she tried not to be scared at the fact that her life, from this point on, would never be the same. Neither would anyone else’s in the Coalition.
If they accessed the time gates and they went through, they would draw history together like someone gathering up strings and tying them in a bunch.
Energy arced over her body, climbing up her back only to race back down like water cascading over a waterfall.
She was done with not showing her vulnerability, and, with everyone’s eyes on her, she collapsed her arms around her middle and dug her fingers hard into her uniform as she anchored them there. She closed her eyes.
“We’ll…” she trailed off. She looked right into her past. She looked into her memories. She looked into her dreams. And she finally found her answer. She opened her eyes and stared at them all. “We’ll have a chance. It won’t be easy, but war never is.”
Silence descended through the room.
Her father was the first to speak. Diana suspected that he would once more affirm she didn’t need to fight. He didn’t. He looked right at her. “I was wrong about you, kid. You are stronger than your old man, that’s for sure.”
She smiled. “I’m really not, but thanks for the compliment.” She looked at Forest. “We need to head to the dig site.” Diana, suffice to say, was not used to giving admirals orders. Her dad didn’t count. Forest sure as hell would.
Though Diana hadn’t had anything to do with Forest, she understood the woman’s reputation, and Forest was the strongest admiral out there.
But Diana was no longer an ordinary cadet.
Forest nodded. “We will. We will first concentrate on clearing the Academy and restoring peace to Earth, and then we will head to Baxan A.”
Nobody had to articulate what would happen when they reached the dig site.
Diana knew better than anyone else, anyway. As she half closed her eyes, she knew what she would have to do.
She would have to breach the wall and open the time gate.
And in doing so, she would have to begin the Coalition’s first and last defense against the Force.
She stared at Sampson. Somehow, he smiled. She smiled back.
Back before she’d initiated the Endgame Maneuver, she’d challenged him, telling him that if they started this, they wouldn’t be able to stop.
That challenge stood. And so did they. It would take more – so much more to knock them off their feet now.
But the Force always had more.