Spirit Unbreakable
Chapter 13

Reniko leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. She was tired of staring at slides through a microscope. She was starting to see things again. She was still thinking about the dream she had had last night. She had been holding a katana facing off against a masked person on a stairwell. The man had shot at her and she had struck the sonic blast with her blade weakening its effect as it hit her. The hit had been enough to wake her from her dream and after that she had not been able to fall back asleep. Instead she had wandered absently into the lab.

“I thought your tests weren’t going to be done for a few days,” Malik said as he came out of the lift and stopped behind Reniko.

“I can’t help myself,” Reniko replied. She turned in her seat and smiled wearily at Malik, “I wish things would go faster.”

Malik replied, “You would think that for a person who has thousands of years ahead of her would be more patient.”

Reniko sighed. “I guess that’s a skill that comes with time. I’m still too used to the lifespan of a human. I did grow up thinking I was one after all.”

Malik did not press the conversation, but instead sat down in the seat next to her. “I thought I would come down and help you translate a bit more.”

“You know, I think I would rather go outside and spar,” Reniko replied getting up from her chair.

“You do realize that I have gotten a lot better since you started training me. Dertrik hasn’t gone easy on me like you used to,” Malik said as a reply.

“Easy? If you think my training was easy than Dertrik must be really pulling out all the stops,” Reniko said grinning. The pair of them got up from their seats and went towards the lift.

“I think he’s making up for all the missed years of training,” Malik said. Reniko laughed, that sounded like Dertrik.

Just as they were about to enter the lift, Reniko paused. Malik looked back at her. He was already on the lift.

“Go on ahead, Mal. I just have to turn off some of the equipment,” Reniko said and strolled back to her work station.

“Don’t leave me for too long, Lyss. If Dertrik sees me idle down there for too long he’s sure to find something to help fill my time,” Malik replied.

“I’ll be only a few minutes, I promise,” Reniko replied as she started flipping switches on various machines watching the light and sound die around her. The door to the lift closed before Malik could reply and he vanished.

Reniko hurriedly shut down the lab, leaving only those tests that hadn’t finished running. Coaxing the computer into standby she turned off the main lights and headed for the lift which had just returned.

As she reached the lift and opened the door she heard a voice calling softly behind her. Turning, she noticed one of the computers had reactivated. Information was blinking rapidly on the screen and a voice was emanating from it.

“Urgent test is now completed, please view results,” the computer called over and over again waiting for Reniko’s input.

Reniko turned back away from the lift towards the computer, weaving her way through the room to her station in the sparsely lit room. She typed quickly on the keyboard and the screen stopped flashing and instead brought up the report.

“That finished faster than I thought,” Reniko said as she looked at the report that was displayed before her. The analysis of the Rük DNA was on the display. Apparently putting urgent on a test makes it come back insanely fast. Reniko read the report, absorbed by its contents, unable to register anything but what it said. A revelation she could never have thought possible. The more she read, the faster her heart raced and the more tears clouded her vision.

“Reflaydun? Rae, are you here?” Reniko cried out to the empty room.

A shadow flickered in the corner of the room and Rae appeared. She looked at Reniko with incomprehension as to the reason for her tears.

“Why are you crying?”

“The report,” Reniko said wiping tears from her eyes and pointing at the screen. “I need a hard copy of this report.” It was not a response to Rae’s question, but instead a demand as Wayann.

“Hard copy?” Rae asked.

Reniko sighed and spoke again, “Something I can take with me.”

“You can download it to that,” Rae replied pointing at a small sheet of what looked like white plastic the width of a piece of paper that was lying on the counter. Reniko picked it up and glanced at Rae.

“What is this?”

“If you tap it to the terminal you are working at it will copy the information that you require,” Rae replied. Reniko followed her instructions, tapping the sheet to the screen and suddenly it was no longer solid white, but had the information she needed illuminated on its surface. It reminded Reniko of something they had back on Earth that had the quirky name of Flimsy. The Flimsy on Earth wasn’t nearly as efficient as this one. On Earth it was a tablet, almost as thin as a piece of paper, but stiff and rigid. The sheet she had in her hand was sturdy but flexible, Reniko thought that she might even be able to crumple it into a ball and it would bounce back in perfect form. She deduced that it had something to do with the nanites that Vespen technology was based on, the same nanites that Earth scientists had yet to perfect. Research into the area had taken a big blow with World War 3, which had plunged mankind into a technological regress.

“Thank you, Rae,” Reniko replied. She headed back towards the lift.

“I do not know why, but your tears make every process I have centre only on your well-being. I do not understand why this is. I cannot compute anything else at this moment,” Rae replied.

Reniko turned and smiled, wiping some of the tears from her face. “That is called concern Rae, and it is something you feel.”

Rae looked at Reniko. “I do not comprehend.”

“I’ll be fine, Rae. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine,” Reniko said and vanished on the lift in search of Malik, leaving a confused Rae behind to contemplate her new found feeling.

Malik was warming up when Reniko appeared. Dertrik was standing nearby watching Malik, his students all having long since gone home. They both turned and looked at Reniko at the same time. Malik dropped the sword and rushed over to her when he saw the look of pain on her face. She no longer had tears in her eyes, but she could not hide the obvious pain that she felt from him.

“What happened, Lyss?” I should have waited for her. Malik ran to her side and noticed the sheet she held in her hand.

“I –” Reniko started to say but instead crumpled into Malik and let out the rest of her breath in a silent cry.

Orric landed feet away from the small group. Reniko buried her face deeper into Malik’s chest. Speak for me Orric. I can’t. She whispered through her mental connection to Orric sending with it her startling revelation.

Malik looked to Orric even before Orric had time to speak.

“Some test results on the Rük came back. She is burdened by them,” Orric said.

Dertrik looked to Reniko and then to Orric, “Why should she be?” Dertrik asked. Malik just tightened his embrace around Reniko and she responded by dissolving nearly into his arms, all strength abandoning her. Instead of bearing her sudden dead weight, he gently lowered himself to the ground and let Reniko rest in his lap. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing rapidly.

“Orric please, tell me what is going on? I can’t bear to see her like this,” Malik demanded.

“It’s complicated,” Orric began, “the test results she got were about the Rük DNA. She was trying to determine which genes had been manipulated by Trokar.”

Dertrik grabbed the sheet from Reniko’s lax grasp and began reading through it. Malik looked from Dertrik’s pensive face back to Orric, “And?”

“It was their emotions,” Reniko whispered. She was speaking so quietly that Malik could barely here her, “he made them all like me.”

“She means like she was with Trokar, but she’s wrong,” Orric replied. “Trokar manipulated the way Reniko thought and that in turn manipulated her emotions. With his own kind,” Orric stopped and let out a mighty roar, Reniko’s emotions flooded into him like a torrent; unable to stop them he could only reflect them. Her sorrow for the Rük turned to rage at the thought of what Trokar had done.

“With his own kind he went to the genetic level, he took away their choices. The Rük that were here on Vespen, they were evil yes, but not by choice. Trokar took that choice away. I wish he could die a thousand deaths for what he did to his own kind, all for power, and for control,” Orric finished.

“Took away their choice?” Malik looked around confused.

“As you feel love, compassion, joy, kindness, empathy, or anger, hate, fear, and sorrow equally and sometimes at the same time, half of those feelings were completely denied to the Rük. They do not know what happiness is, they are unable to. They literally could not feel good emotions, they were manipulated into the creatures they were, they had no choice but to be evil,” Dertrik said, “What Trokar did was perverse and sadistic.”

Dertrik looked up from the report and leaned over Reniko brushing her hair from her face. “Renny, please don’t suffer over this. You couldn’t have known. It was the only way.”

“How many voices did I silence before they had a chance to choose for themselves, Dare? How many hundreds of thousands of voices were silenced by my hand?” Reniko cried out her voice suddenly anguished.

“No,” Malik replied. “No, Lyss. Don’t do this to yourself. None of this is your fault. None of it. Their blood is not on your hands, it is on Trokar’s. He is the one that did all of this, not you. I won’t let you do this to yourself. You can’t. You won’t.” He tenderly grabbed her chin and made her look at him. Her eyes were on him still glassy with unshed tears. “Don’t blame yourself Lyss, for anything that creature did. Hasn’t he stolen enough of you from us?”

Listen to him Reniko. Do not let Trokar keep such a hold on your soul. He is dead, his sins with him. You are no longer in his hands. Orric spoke embedding in his words Malik’s feelings.

I have to save them. I have to free them from Trokar’s grip, as Malik freed me. Reniko replied.

They may not care. Their emotions have been distorted for so long, they may still choose the same path that they were on. Orric said.

Even so, it has to be a choice they are allowed to make for themselves.

Reniko smiled at Malik and leaned up to kiss him whispering “Thank-you,” before she did.

“But this doesn’t make sense,” Dertrik said.

Reniko looked at Dertrik, “What do you mean?”

“These results wouldn’t account for the loss of consciousness that the higher ranked Rük experienced and the insanity the other Rük were plunged into. Something else is at work. As interesting and revealing as these results are, it doesn’t help with the problem at hand,” Dertrik replied.

“So you’re saying we just added another problem to solve?” Malik replied.

“Even if it won’t solve the initial problem, it’s still the only lead we have so far. Maybe by fixing this we can shed some light on what we are truly after,” Reniko said. “What I really need right now is a DNA sample from Trokar.”

Reniko had gone immediately to her lab. Malik had been steps behind her, but with Reniko so determined and mind set, she was hard to keep up with. He waited impatiently for the lift doors to open. When they parted, he could see Reniko walking across the corridor towards the morgue.

“What are you doing Reniko? Trokar is gone. We turned him to ash. What do you expect to find in there?” Malik ran up to Reniko as she opened the door to the cold room. He hated the morgue, it reeked of death and that put him in mind of when Reniko had lay dying and he had felt helpless to stop it. It had been one of the worst moments in his life and so the sudden smell made him recoil from the room hesitant to follow.

“Not all of Trokar is gone. I kept a little of him around. As morbid as that sounds, I am very glad I did right now. He may be the only one that can shed light on our problems. I wish that I would have thought of this before.” Before opening the drawer stool in front of, Reniko slipped on some sterile gloves that she had found a supply of in the lab. Once open, she grabbed a dagger from it.

As Reniko looked at the dagger, she remembered what it had felt like to end Trokar’s life. She had plunged it deep into his side stopping his heart. She felt herself stop breathing at the memory and slowly let it out. It felt like a dream. She had known she would die there, his sword plunged through her chest, and so the act of killing him meant little to her at the time. Her only thought was that she would die with the knowledge that the people of Vespen were free. Living after that, she had to face the pain of every life she had taken. She remembered the nameless Rük she had called Limey, the first living creature that had died under her blade; the second, Kruok. It had been Kruok’s death that had led her to Trokar’s eventual murder as well. Seven lives she had ended and each one haunted her. Seven souls that she could not bring back. Seven lives that were sacrificed for the greater good. One life that could possibly shed light on saving many more.

Reniko, dagger in hand, left the morgue and entered her lab area. Malik walked behind her, glad to be away from the smell of death. He was intrigued by the dagger that Reniko held in her hand.

“Why did you keep that?” Malik asked.

“As a reminder,” Reniko replied.

“A reminder of what, Lyss?”

“A reminder of the sins I must atone for.” Reniko took a swab and gently pulled away some of the blood that stained the blade, holding out hope that this would give her some of the answers she was looking for. Malik stood by watching her carefully, trying to puzzle over the thoughts that were in her head, and wishing that he was Orric and could share her mind. Maybe then he would understand why annihilating a cancer such as Trokar was such a burden to Reniko. Since he could not, the only thing he could do was watch, wait, and support her. With time, either she would come to terms with her inner struggle or at the very least he hoped he would understand enough to help her through it. He hoped that his constant presence at her side would at the very least remind her of what good she had done, of how much he needed her, and how much she needed him.

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