Supernova on Twine (8 page)

Talk
about embarrassing.

Zane didn’t know what was worse
—
having to crap at a desperate time
with eternals on their tails, or showing the result to their new
friends and allies. Still, if the spirit folk technology within him
could save Supernova on Twine from the shadow eternals by phasing
it so the threat could be subdued, then he was certain they
wouldn’t care where it came from.

Motac said,
I will take some pain from
you, bearing the brunt on your behalf
.

A spasm
rocked Zane. If he’d had room he would have doubled over. Sweat
covered him and Tink tried his best to ease his pain, to no avail.
Again and again searing agony pulsed throughout his
body.

Zane
yelled, reinforcing the pain he felt.

Finally,
with the device deep in his lower intestines, it moved into
position for its final journey. Zane screamed again, as loud as his
lungs would allow. He had no choice but to lift up his legs,
knocking the wind out of Tink as his knees found his boyfriend’s
stomach.

A moment
later, he fell into unconsciousness.

Chapter
Eight

Emergency
entry, Zane’s implanted data storage device. Ship time, unknown.
Location, unknown. Date, unknown. Internal input.

Zane’s
diary recorded his thoughts even though he wasn’t fully lucid.
Whether he was drugged for his own benefit or still feeling the
after effects of trying to pass something which shouldn’t have been
passed in the first place, he wasn’t certain.

All he
knew was, he was alive.

He said,
his voice hoarse and like gravel, “I did it. I managed to get the
phase shifter out of my system without killing myself.” He looked
around, vision still blurry. He was in a sort of medical unit,
equipment all around him. Tink was sitting on the nearest chair,
fast asleep and looking rather uncomfortable resting his head in
his hands.

I am sorry I had to knock you into unconsciousness, but it was
the only way I could take away your pain
,
Motac said.

Zane smiled. To hear Motac’s voice, that was reassuring and
wonderful.
How long have I been
out?

One full day
.

Was I…um…you know…hurt bad?

No. The phase shifter was quite malleable, thank
goodness
.

But there is something you need to know.
Motac’s voice was cold and distant, in stark contrast to a few
moments ago.

What? What do I need to know?

The door
to the medical unit opened. A human stepped in, dressed in a white
coat, holding a professional arrogance only doctors could ever
muster. Tink was awakened by the intrusion and came to Zane
straight away.

“
Tink is pleased you’re all right.” The cat being kissed Zane,
but it wasn’t a kiss filled with passion and need and want all
rolled into one like when he always kissed. There was a hesitation,
a pause in the way he delivered his affection.

“
What’s going on here?” Zane said. If Motac hadn’t told him
something was up, he would have picked up on it anyway. Tink never
held back.

Tink
looked at the doctor. “Tink thinks his Zane is ready to know
now.”

Prepare yourself, beautiful.

The
doctor nodded. All of a sudden his harsh features softened, and he
stepped closer. “Your arrival has been expected, Zane Carson.
You—”

Without
letting the man continue, Zane sat up. “Expected?”

Calm yourself.

I’m not calming myself. What does he mean? What the fuck is
going on here?
Zane said, “How is it we’re
expected?”

The
doctor patted Zane on his knee. “As soon as the planet we now know
as Parenthesis entered our space, we were boarded and forced to
surrender to the will of the eternals. The beings who are playing
hosts to the shadows were ruthless.” The doctor paused. “Many
people were murdered trying to defend our freedom. Then…then you
came aboard. The eternals instructed us to give you to them as soon
as you had recovered from your ordeal.”

Zane felt
a deep sadness, right in the pit of his stomach. “So I shat out a
fuckin’ phase shiftin’ cucumber for nothin’?”

Not for nothing, beautiful. There is a human underground here.
They are in possession of the spirit folk technology. As far as the
eternals are concerned, you’re suffering from space sickness,
nothing more
.

Zane
looked at Tink and grabbed hold of his hand. He could tell
immediately the words Motac and the doctor spoke were all true.
Tink’s eyes could never lie. With that sinking feeling, he also
truly felt sick. But one question plagued his mind. “Are you a part
of this human underground, doc?”

The
doctor nodded. “I am.” He clicked his fingers. “But as such, and as
you would be perfectly aware because you have a coalition eternal
within you, my identity must be maintained if I am to do greater
good.”

Zane
swallowed hard. “What are you going to do?”

Just
then, the door opened. Two men entered, rolling a large device Zane
knew the appearance of all too well. It was the eternal extractor.
The doctor was going to remove Motac from within him and leave Zane
to his own devices.

He cannot take me from you
, Motac
said, his voice almost pleading.
If I am
gone, then the shadow eternals will have won. Their threat that has
now rocked humanity here at this station will send ripples of their
actions through time, coursing down through history to affect all
humans that have ever lived. Zane, my beautiful, you must do
something. We cannot lose here. The coalition has lost so much to
get me to you. If we fail, if we let the shadow eternals win, then
every human ever born from the time you swung down from the trees
to when you reach your higher plane of existence five million years
from now, will become, will be, eternal food and eternal slaves. We
cannot let that happen
.

Zane balled his fists, overcome with anger
—
but not soon enough. The two
assistants had already set up the extractor, charging it.
What do you want me to do?

Fight!

He sprang up from the bed, his mind still filled with the
confusion of his awakening. Tink must have caught on to his
intentions, because he unretracted his claws, slashing at the
closest white coated man to him. Blood soon stained the pristine
cleanliness of the medical unit’s room
—
that, and screams of
agony.

Still,
Zane became tangled in the sheets, his swift action attempted with
too much haste and not enough thought. Motac was yelling at him,
but the doctor and the other assistant had made their charge before
he could free himself. He hadn’t even given Motac any of his seed
to enhance his abilities after he’d awakened, either.

To put it
simply, Zane was fucked.

Even so,
he overpowered the assistant through sheer brutal determination and
many blind punches, some finding their mark, and sent the man
crashing to the floor on his backside. At the same time, Zane felt
a pin-prick on his neck. The tussle he’d had with the assistant had
given the doctor time to prepare a needle.

Zane’s
vision became blurry.

We’ve been drugged!

No fuckin’ kiddin’.

Tink had
dispensed with the assistant he was tackling, who was now nothing
but a dead man slumped in a pool of blood. The second assistant,
however, had scrambled to his feet and activated the extractor
before Tink could send him to oblivion to join his freshly killed
friend.

Zane fell
back down onto the bed, his knees buckling from under him. The drug
had already taken effect. “You fuckin’ bastards. You don’t know
what you’ve done. You’re all fucked now!”

The
doctor said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll understand soon.”

With
those words reverberating around Zane’s mind, the beam from the
extractor struck him, blinding and paralysing. Motac screamed in
agony. Zane, for the first time since he had been bonded to the
coalition eternal, felt fear, sheer and absolute.

Tink
rushed to Zane’s side.

Zane
turned to look at him, his whole body numb. Unable to form words,
he couldn’t do anything but witness with increasing darkness
crowding his vision, blurring the events that followed.

Goodbye, my beautiful.

A brief
moment after the beam struck, the effect of the drug took its toll.
Zane collapsed. Before he found unconsciousness, the feeling of
being empty pervaded all his thoughts and emotions.

Motac was
gone.

Zane
managed to watch the medical unit become flooded with Banshan
warriors. Tink was taken away, as was Motac.

One of
the Banshan was their leader. Erkla came over Zane, brandishing an
ornate knife. “We needed you conscious so we could extract the
traitor. Now that we have him, your purpose has been served. On
behalf of the empire of the eternals, we thank you, human. Your
death will be the first of many who dare to resist us.”

With a
cruel smile, the Banshan leader plunged the knife deep into Zane’s
stomach. Zane felt no pain. It seemed the drug did more than
incapacitate him. It numbed the agony of his death.

Zane
gasped the last breath of his life. There was no tunnel of light.
No relatives long lost to greet him as he had been told when a
spirit passes into the afterlife.

He was
dead.

To be continued…

To be continued in
Ripples in Time
Eternal
, Episode Three of
Diary of the Eternal War.

Here’s a
sneak peek:

Emergency
access input override, automated wake up response. Diary algorithm
activated. Ship time, unknown. Date, unknown. Internal and external
input initiated. Loading…now.

Zane
opened his eyes. It hurt to do so.

A stranger, a man of ragged features and scars all over his
face looked down upon him. “Welcome back to the land of the living,
warrior Zane. I’m Kort
—
Kort Sirus, leader of the human resistance here at Super.
Thanks to our dear doctor and his quick thinking injecting you with
a preservative serum, you’re able to fight another day.”

Zane
tried to get up. He couldn’t move. He tried to speak. Nothing. He
called in his mind for Motac. No answer.

Kort
gestured for Zane to calm. “It’ll take a few hours for your systems
to come back to life, especially after your surgery to repair the
wound to your stomach. For now you can see, think and breathe. More
than many who have been murdered by the eternals for resisting
them, that’s for certain.”

Zane
looked at him intently.

The man
added, “Don’t worry, the cat beings known as Tink and Mirko are
safe. We organised an ambush and retrieved them from Banshan
custody before they could be killed.”

Zane
opened his mouth. Again, no sound emerged except a pained and
barely audible moan. With that moan, Zane managed to utter,
“M…o…t…a…c?”

Kort
shook his head. “Dead, I’m afraid. We can’t take any chances here,
Zane, you’ve got to understand that. Humanity is at war and as a
result, all eternals, whether in a host or not, are destroyed on
sight. Look, some have taken over people I have loved. When it
comes down to it, we all have to do what we have to do for the
greater survival of our species.”

Zane
couldn’t help but feel a great loss. Then again, if what the man
said was true, why was Mirko still alive? He couldn’t live without
Zoltan.

“
I will leave you to rest, my friend. I’m sure you’ve got many
more questions. Besides, Tink wants to see you as soon as you’re on
your feet. He’s a mighty fine looking man, that one, and you’re
lucky to have his attention, I must say.”

Before
Zane could answer, either with a groan or a nod, Kort left him. A
door slammed with a metallic thud.

For the
longest time silence, haunting and somewhat scary, was Zane’s only
companion as he lay in the den of the human resistance. Then, from
the corner of his eye, he was sure he saw movement in the darkness.
Sure, he was on a makeshift bed, dim lights illuminating an
otherwise dull and featureless room, but he was certain he wasn’t
alone. Who would be in here with him? And more importantly, why? No
one would know he was here, would they?

Zane
tried to turn his head, to no avail. Immediately, a shadow came
over him.

He
gasped.

* * *
*

Who is the other presence in the resistance recovery room with
Zane? Is Motac truly dead? Are Tink and Mirko really safe? Or is
all of this just another shadow eternal plot, an attempt to get
Zane to reveal the whereabouts of more coalition eternals and seal
humanities fate? All these questions and more will be answered in
the next episode of the Diary of the Eternal War,
Ripples in Time Eternal
.