Thorne's Trap
1779 Words
The gunships didn't fire on the fighters.
They fired on the Perimeter walls.
Kaelen dove behind a barricade as explosions ripped through the ancient stone. Chunks of rock rained down. Dust choked the air.
He's not trying to kill us. He's trying to open the prison.
“Hold your fire!” Kaelen shouted. “Save your ammunition!”
Zara crawled beside him. “What is he doing?”
“Breaking the walls. The Source is exposed. He thinks he can walk in and take it.”
Another explosion. The Perimeter walls cracked. Blue light bled through the fissures.
Thorne's voice boomed through a loudspeaker.
“Sergeant Vance! Your resistance is admirable but futile. I have three hundred soldiers. You have nine. Surrender now, and I'll let your people walk away.”
“He's lying,” Zara said.
“I know.” Kaelen checked his rifle. “But he's also right. We can't hold.”
“Then what do we do?”
Kaelen looked at the Source. The sphere was visible now, pulsing weakly. The prison was failing.
“We go inside.”
“Inside? That's what he wants!”
“He wants to control it. I want to destroy it.” Kaelen stood. “Cover me.”
He ran.
---
Bullets chased him across the open ground.
Zara and the fighters returned fire, keeping the Accord soldiers pinned behind their transports. Kaelen dove through a gap in the Perimeter wall.
Inside, the Source chamber was dark.
The sphere floated in the center, cracked and bleeding light. The Ascendant—the false Ethan—was waiting.
“You came back,” it said. Its voice echoed inside Kaelen's skull, even without the ghost. “I thought you would.”
“I'm not here to merge.”
“Then why are you here?”
Kaelen walked to the sphere. Pressed his hand against its surface.
“To make a deal.”
The Ascendant laughed.
“You have nothing I want.”
“I have myself. The compatible host you need. But you don't get me unless you help me stop Thorne.”
“Why would I help you stop him? He wants to open the prison. I want to open the prison. We want the same thing.”
“No. He wants to control the Harvesters. Use them as weapons. You want to free them. Those are not the same thing.”
The Ascendant was silent.
Then: “What do you propose?”
“You reinforce the prison. Buy me time. I'll stop Thorne and his army. When the battlefield is secure, we talk about the merge.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then Thorne breaks the walls, captures the Source, and spends the next century trying to control something he doesn't understand. You stay trapped. I die. Everyone loses.”
The sphere pulsed.
“You have twelve hours. After that, the prison fails regardless. I can't hold it longer.”
“Twelve is enough.”
Kaelen pulled his hand away.
The blue light in the sphere dimmed. The cracks stopped spreading.
Outside, the gunships went silent.
---
Kaelen emerged from the Source to find the battlefield frozen.
Accord soldiers stared at the Perimeter walls. The light had stopped bleeding. The prison was stable.
Thorne's voice came through the loudspeaker again. This time, there was anger in it.
“What did you do?”
“I bought time,” Kaelen shouted back. “Twelve hours. That's how long until the prison fails. You want to open it? You'll have to get through me first.”
“Twelve hours is nothing. I can wait.”
“Can you? Because your soldiers have been marching for two days. They're out of food. Low on ammunition. And every hour you wait, more Freehold fighters are arriving.”
It was a bluff. There were no reinforcements coming.
But Thorne didn't know that.
Silence.
Then: “You're lying.”
“Am I? Look at the ridge.”
Kaelen pointed to the east. Zara had stationed three fighters there earlier, with orders to move in circles, make dust clouds, create the illusion of a larger force.
Thorne's scouts would see movement. Would report reinforcements.
The loudspeaker crackled.
“This isn't over, Vance.”
The Accord forces began to withdraw.
---
Zara ran to Kaelen as the last transport disappeared over the horizon.
“They're leaving?”
“Regrouping. Thorne is too smart to attack without knowing what he's facing.” Kaelen leaned against the wall. His side burned. “We have twelve hours.”
“Twelve hours until what?”
“Until the prison fails. The Ascendant bought us time. Not much.”
“Can we evacuate the Perimeter? Get everyone to safety?”
“And go where? The Harvesters won't stop at the Divide. They'll spread across the continent. The arcologies. The Freeholds. Everywhere.”
Zara grabbed his arm. “Then what's the plan?”
Kaelen looked at the Source.
“The Ascendant wants to merge with a compatible host. Me. If I do it, I become the warden of the prison. I can control the Harvesters. Keep them contained.”
“And what happens to you?”
“I become part of the Source. I don't leave.”
Zara's face went pale.
“No.”
“Zara—”
“No. There has to be another way.”
“There isn't. The Ascendant was clear. Merge or die.”
“Then we kill the Ascendant.”
“If it dies, the prison dies with it. The Harvesters are released anyway.”
Zara paced. Her hands shook.
“You're asking me to watch you sacrifice yourself.”
“I'm asking you to help me save everyone else.”
She stopped. Looked at him.
“I just kissed you.”
“I remember.”
“And now you're telling me you're going to die.”
Kaelen pulled her close. Held her.
“I'm telling you I'm going to do what I was born to do. The Accord bred me for this. The ghost prepared me for this. My brother died for this.” He pulled back. Met her eyes. “If I don't do it, his death meant nothing.”
Zara's eyes were wet.
“That's not fair.”
“No. It's not.” He touched her face. “But it's the truth.”
---
Vogler found them an hour later.
The old man had been in the tunnels, studying the Source's architecture. His face was gray with exhaustion.
“The Ascendant lied to you,” he said.
Kaelen turned. “About what?”
“The merge. It doesn't have to be permanent.” Vogler held up a data slate. “I found the original schematics. The prison was designed with a failsafe within the failsafe. A way to transfer the warden's consciousness after a set period.”
“How long?”
“One year. After that, the warden can transfer the role to another compatible host. Or the Source can be shut down entirely.”
“Why didn't the Ascendant tell me?”
“Because it wants you permanently. A temporary warden can choose to release the Harvesters. A permanent one can't.” Vogler lowered the slate. “The Ascendant is desperate. It's been alone for three centuries. It doesn't want a partner. It wants a prisoner.”
Kaelen stared at the Source.
“Can you modify the merge? Make it temporary whether the Ascendant agrees or not?”
“Yes. But I'd need access to the Source's core. And the Ascendant would know what I was doing.”
“Then we distract it.”
“How?”
Kaelen looked at Zara.
“You're not going to like this.”
---
The plan was simple. Insane. But simple.
Zara would enter the Source with Kaelen. While he kept the Ascendant talking, she would plant Vogler's device in the core. The device would rewrite the merge protocol, making it temporary.
But the Ascendant could sense human consciousness. It would know Zara was there.
“Unless you hide,” Vogler said.
“Hide where?” Zara asked.
“In the ghost's residual data. The ghost is gone, but its imprint remains in Kaelen's implant. If you connect to it—temporarily—the Ascendant will sense Kaelen's signature, not yours.”
“Connect how?”
Vogler held up a neural interface cable.
“You'll feel everything Kaelen feels. His pain. His memories. His fear.” He looked at her. “It won't be pleasant.”
Zara took the cable.
“Neither is watching him die.”
---
They entered the Source together.
The sphere glowed brighter as they approached. The Ascendant's voice filled the chamber.
“You brought company.”
“She's here to witness,” Kaelen said. “To tell the story when I'm gone.”
“Sentimental. But acceptable.”
Kaelen walked to the sphere. Pressed his hand against it.
Behind him, Zara plugged the neural cable into the base of his skull.
The Ascendant screamed.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the terms.”
Zara's consciousness flooded into Kaelen's implant. He felt her fear. Her anger. Her desperate hope.
The Ascendant thrashed against the merge. Blue light exploded from the sphere.
“Now!” Kaelen shouted.
Zara ran to the core—a crystalline structure at the base of the sphere. She pressed Vogler's device against it.
The Ascendant's scream became a roar.
“Traitors!”
The device activated. Blue light turned red. The sphere shuddered.
Kaelen felt something snap inside his head. The merge—the permanent merge—was broken.
He collapsed.
Zara caught him. Pulled the cable free.
The Ascendant's voice faded to a whisper.
“You've doomed us all.”
Then the Source went dark.
---
Kaelen woke on the ground outside the Perimeter.
The sky was gray. The gunships were gone. The Accord had withdrawn completely.
Zara sat beside him. Her face was streaked with tears and dust.
“You're alive.”
“So are you.” He tried to sit up. Failed. “The prison?”
“Stable. For now. Vogler says we have a year. Maybe more.”
“A year.”
“To find another solution. Another compatible host. Another way.” She helped him sit. “We have time.”
Kaelen looked at the Perimeter walls. The blue light was gone. The Source was dark.
But he could still feel it. Faint. Waiting.
“Thorne will be back.”
“Let him come.” Zara helped him stand. “We'll be ready.”
They walked back toward the Freeholds.
Behind them, the prison stood silent.
And inside, the Ascendant dreamed of revenge.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD