The sound grows louder. I cup my hands around my ears. “Eat shit!”
I can see the moment before he dies in his eyes. There is horror and anger, a true resentment toward humanity. But it does not last.
Turin shields his body around me.
His head explodes.
Yeah, his entire head.
Sometimes, the truth is hard to believe. What I know to be true? I’ll be having some interesting nightmares after this.
Fourteen
Turin
“Is it over?” Naomi asks, unshaken.
She stares away from the carnage that is Zakar’s undoing. Nudging her head into my abdomen, she sighs. “Is it really over?”
It’s hard to trust that it’s over and done with, but it is. Zakar is dead. I did what I had to do to the Captain. There are no enemies to face anymore.
Wait…
“Fassbender,” I say.
Roy groans and rubs his back. He can barely walk. “Oh, shit.”
As Naomi runs through the cracked hallway, the rest of us follow.
When we’re outside, Naomi is stopped near the trail. “Guys,” she says.
Fassbender is standing at the other end, wielding a knife. “It doesn’t matter what you do to this place,” he says. “You’ll never escape.”
Naomi inches back. “Fassbender. Zakar is dead. We have the weapons. You have no choice, but to give up.”
Fassbender heaves another breath. “There are more, you know,” he says. “More missions like this. Earth Federation isn’t just a project. It’s the next stage for mankind.”
As long as I’ve been held a prisoner here, I’ve never given that a thought. Perhaps selfishly, I thought we were the only intergalactic experiments. If he’s telling the truth, we have no chance at besting them.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I can’t change the universe, but I can choose to change my life.
I can choose to live a normal life with Naomi. And if Earth goes against us, I’ll die knowing I found something real in a universe filled with so much deception.
“You failed the mission,” Roy says. “Earth Federation might’ve fucked us over, but they’ll never accept you back now. Not after all you’ve cost them.”
A screeching noise goes off in the distance. Naomi glares at me. “The Captain?”
I did what I had to do to the Captain. Meaning, I subdued him with some tranquilizers.
I let him live, so Fassbender could have the match he yearned for.
I take a deep breath and smile. “Goodbye, Fassbender,” I say, snatching Naomi into my arms. “And good luck. You will need it.”
Fassbender shivers as he drops his knife.
We walk away, headed toward the shoreline.
“You kept the Captain alive. Why?” Naomi asks.