‘Dawn is healed. Dawn will fly Kit and Master Aki.’ Dawn had watched our passionate conversation the entire time and stayed silent and supportive.
I wanted to tell her no, to fight for her safety, but she’d long told me that it was she and I until the end and so I allowed it. I just hoped I wouldn’t live to regret it.
‘Thank you, friend.’ My fingers stroked her furry feathers, and then I pulled out a pen and paper from my backpack to pen a final letter to my friends.
My hand shook as I tried to think of the opening line.
Please forgive me. I love you all too much to sacrifice even one of you. Dawn has told me of the existence of a queen breeder. I’m taking Master Aki and we’re going to take her out so we can end the Dream Wars. I’ll meet you back here at the gateway to bring it all down together.
I paused. I wanted to say something about if I didn’t show up, but I couldn’t bear to think of that.
All my love.
Kit
With that, Master Aki, Dawn, and I walked to the gateway and prepared for our solo mission.
Twelve
We walked the back way around the lake, which took an extra ten minutes but helped us avoid running into Damien or anyone else. I gave the guard at the gateway my note and then we slipped into the Dream War without question. I was a commander after all, and the army had been told to take my orders.
Flying through the Dream War on our way to the queen breeder’s den, I was outfitted for battle but for my plasma cuff, as it would not let me fight others, only protect me from getting hurt. I was due to meet Jeremy for my final helmet fitting in a few minutes. I felt awful about bailing on him. He’d put so much work into that device and it might never be used.
If I could kill this queen breeder and use the helmet to attract and kill the other breeders… we had a shot of bringing this whole fucking world down. Before I’d gone to get Dawn, Ronnie had given me a cocktail of drugs, including steroids, to hopefully help my brain from having another hemorrhage. My ankle wasn’t perfectly healed, but she put it in a hard brace to keep the stitches from ripping if I got into a fight.
‘We are close, she may be expecting you. Queen breeder is hive mind, like… human computer.’
That sort of made sense but not really. Instead of trying to get Dawn to explain herself better, I decided it didn’t really matter. I was going to kill this bitch either way.
We were flying over a field of pod trees, but Dawn was descending over a small hump in the ground that looked like the entrance to a cave.
I turned and shouted over my shoulder at Master Aki: “She may be expecting us. Be on guard.”
He nodded and held my gaze. “Kit, you are capable of great things. I’ve seen it. Let the energy flow through you, don’t hold on to it. When you hold it, you get hurt. Let it move through you. You are a conduit for it.”
What the...? Another thing I didn’t quite understand. The alien planet energy? My breeder energy? What energy? But the time for questions was over.
I had an awful feeling in my stomach that this wasn’t going to go well. That one or all of us were going to die.
“I love you. Thank you for taking a chance on a little girl with anger issues. You saved me.” Tears streamed down my cheeks as I thought of the countless hours he’d put in training me and what a little shit I’d been in my early teen years.
Why was I so emotional lately? The stone-cold warrior in me had been broken since I allowed myself to fall for Damien. Now there were feelings everywhere and all the time.
He sighed, giving me a small smile. “I love you too, Kit. And it’s you who saved me.”
Before I could respond, Dawn landed right in front of a cave opening. This was no ordinary opening, this was… like a graveyard. There were piles upon piles of… human bones… stacked neatly by the front opening in ceremonial piles and stained with... fresh red blood.
Nausea rolled into me but I didn’t have time for it, because two sentries walked out of the cave and looked right at us.
“I got this.” Master Aki dismounted and threw something. It took me a second to realize it was a grenade.
‘Get down!’ I shouted to Dawn, and flew off her back just as the bomb went off.
The force of the blast threw dust and rocks everywhere and Master Aki disappeared into the dirt cloud, probably to finish off the sentries himself.
Dammit, he had a death wish.
“Get my back!” I called to Dawn as she stood and brought in the rear.
‘Always.’
She could breathe fire, so bringing her hadn’t totally been for her ability to fly.
As the dust began to settle, Master Aki walked out of it holding two heads, one for each sentry. I knew this was a life or death moment, but I couldn’t help but remark at how badass my mentor was.
“Hopefully we’ve gotten her attention,” I declared to Master Aki, surveying the rubble that was the entrance to her cave. If she was in there, she was buried alive. The grenade was a smart idea; we might not even have to kill her. We could starve her out and keep her trapped in there.
Flicking my gaze over my shoulder, I made sure Dawn was watching my back, which she was, and then I turned back to the collapsed cave entrance.
The rocks… were shaking. Like each one contained a battery and was set on high, they were all vibrating.
“Get back!” Master Aki screamed, his arm coming out to push me behind him just as every rock barring the cave entrance exploded outward
