Chapter 15: Sefina
“What’s wrong?” Sythius asks when I drop myself in the copilot’s seat. “You killed the crazy Creator slash Captain Cerzsl, this time. Right?”
I sigh and watch as Fracture, back in his whole form, closes the ramp and guides us out of the outpost’s space. “I’m not so sure these days. Damn clones.”
“Lovely.” Sythius keeps working on repairing the gun controls in the ship’s floor. “Stars, this beast is a Frankenstein.”
“A what?” Fracture asks.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Where are you taking us? Do you know where you are?”
“I know everything Menace does.”
“Everything?”
Fracture nods as he gently banks us northeast and into the denser woods. “A shield generator was left behind at an abandoned outpost. They couldn’t carry it. But we need it for the ship so we can lift the ghostcloak. We’re going to pick that up.”
I look back as Menace walks into a room, and the door closes. “Why didn’t he tell me the truth about Mintaka?”
Fracture’s eyes shimmer with images. “Because they loved her. All of the stealth models, even Savage. Losing her was like losing Mother Besha. She was a tragedy because she was strong enough to become one of us.
“She wanted to understand us. And then she sacrificed herself to save them because she realized what Quris was doing, manipulating all of them by dangling her out there.
“Relics are older models. Titans like Menace and others who served with Savage are the oldest CyberTitans built after Blood Cyphers were considered too dangerous and uncontrollable. More of them didn’t make the final cut.”
“But the years don’t make sense. Cara’s mother was a Creator. She worked with Amp, Menace, Savage, and the others. My mother, too, but she wasn’t a Creator. She was a sentinel for the resistance.”
“Is it so farfetched to consider that time has moved differently for those of you descended from Creators who made us immortal? You are so certain she was only ever a sentinel.”
“My father was the Creator.”
“Perhaps he turned her into a Titan,” Fracture suggests.
Suddenly, my father’s insane behavior and his obsession with work make sense.
“My mother was injured in a raid when I was about fifteen. When she came home, she was different, gentler, and more patient with my father, who was continually losing more of his mind.
“Three weeks later, the Solcrue raided our camp looking for resistance members. I never saw any of my family after that day. I wasn’t at their posts. I didn’t take the ship out of there. I never heard from any of our mediums what the whispers were. I have never been able to hear them.”
“Maybe that was best,” Sythius remarks.
“How can you say that?”
He replaces the panel in the floor and leans back against the wall. “I found my family. Wish I hadn’t.”
The anger drains from me. “I’m sorry.”
“Solcrue sent Venoms to kill me, but they only found the human hunters who raised me. My Kilthrian mother was an anaja. She died bringing me into the world. My father is General Predu.”
Even Fracture looks back at him. “How do you know?”
“I confronted him. He confirmed it. I barely escaped alive. I’ve always been torn about whose side I’m on because of what I am. But I guess since I found my guardians slaughtered, I’ve been searching for a way into the Solcruean world, not because I want to be like them but because I want to destroy them from the inside out like they’ve done to me, my mother, and my human guardians.
“But it’s easy to get lost in the hatred and forget my human half has the ability to be better. I’m pretty sure most Solcrue aren’t redeemable without their life in the balance. Even then, I’m not sure. Anyway, sometimes not knowing can be a good thing. Because knowing haunts me constantly.”
Fracture hovers the ship lower and snakes under the cover of the tall mountains. “Sefina, I don’t know if you will be comfortable with this, but Menace is not in a good headspace. I have tried talking to him, but he has switched off coms. The last sense I got from him was regret and desolation.
“I must fly. Sythius’ presence is not going to comfort Menace. It has to be you. We are going to need him to focus in the hours ahead, or we may not make it back in time to help Clover get the BlazeStar ready. I do not want to leave this planet without every single Brother and Sister on board. Please consider talking to him.”
