Grick and Jesson were in the same, low tent, and a few soldiers guarded it. There was another, larger tent for the couple dozen Sonofs wounded in the battle. Their injuries were mostly minor, and the few whose injuries weren’t would soon get better. Cory still felt terrible about their conditions, though.

As he approached Jesson’s tent, one guard scowled at him. The other smiled. Cory was not used to the feelings he was getting from the members of the camp. They let him in, and he entered right as Jesson was trying to sit up. Cory rushed over to him and gently eased him down on the low cot.

“Whoa Captain, easy, you shouldn’t do that,” Cory said.

Jesson tried to fight but didn’t have much strength. “Get your hands off me! What do you think you’re doing in here? Trying to mock me?” he asked, kicking at his thick blankets.

“I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Jesson laughed. “Well take a good look. Do I look like I could go dancing to you?”

“No.”

“Right not! Wouldn’t dance to that silliness anyway. The Soul are you doing here anyway? I thought you’d put your lot in with the Sonofs.”

“I have no lot in anyone but what’s right,” Cory said, trying to be patient.

“Oh, what’s right, eh?” Jesson said with a rueful smile. “Tell that to Grick Matten over there. He’s barely breathing, but I’m sure he’ll take consolation in that you stood for what’s right.” Jesson snickered and lay back down with a flump.

Cory turned and saw the wounded man.

“Or tell that to the men who died because you didn’t stop me,” Jesson added.

Cory turned back to Jesson. “What?” he asked.

Jesson reached out and tried to grab Cory. Cory quickly moved out of the way.

“Listen, you’ve got to get me out of here,” Jesson said with wide eyes. “When they find out who I am they’ll kill me. They’ll probably kill you for even being with me. If we leave soon, they might not notice for an hour or so.”

“What?”

“I’m not exactly well liked among the Sonofs, Cory.” Jesson seemed strangely sad about this fact.

“Does this have something to do with Middleton?” Cory asked.

Jesson’s eyes lit up with a fiery rage. “You know what happened there!” He half-shouted.

“Everyone knows about the slaughter, Jesson. I was there to clean out the burnt bodies.”

“I meant about what exactly was done,” Jesson said with worry in his eyes.

Cory didn’t really want to know the details now. “No, no, Meln told me. I mean, Meln Sonoforn told me to tell you that he’s sorry for it. Did you try to kill him there or something?”

Jesson’s expression turned to bewilderment as he stared at Cory for a few seconds. Then his face hardened again. “So we’re together at last,” Jesson said with a sigh. “Meln Sonoforn, how I’ve wanted to add you to my list.”

“Okay look, I have no clue what’s going on so if you’d like to fill me in so I’m not walking on skulls here that would be great,” Cory said.

“It’s not something most people like to know. But a few years ago, a new settlement, Middleton, was wiped out. Women, children, a few hundred people murdered in their sleep by Meln Sonoforn and the Sonofs.”

“I know. I’ve read the history. But it never explained why it happened,” Cory said. He sat down on a nearby folding chair in light shock. He didn’t think Meln was capable of slaughter. He also never thought Tane was capable of indifference when asking him to slaughter two hundred people.

Jesson shrugged, then jerked in pain from it. “We were encroaching on their territory. Didn’t want us messing with their culture or something and wanted to kick us out hard. Anyway,” Jesson continued, “we wouldn’t stand for that. So the government formed a shock unit for revenge. I led it.”

Cory knew what was coming next. “How many people did you kill?”

Jesson sighed. “Grain Sonoftone, Bim Sonofish, Jane Sonoflon,” Jesson whispered with a fast breath. “Three hundred and fifty-two.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Cory was actually relieved it wasn’t more.

“We’d sneak up on them at night. We were very well trained, suffered few casualties,” Jesson said. He clenched his jaw tight, as if words wanted to come out but he wouldn’t let them. Cory could barely make out a few mumbled sentences, the only discernable words being Sonof over and over.

“After that, we made the treaty,” Jesson said after he’d stopped mumbling. “They wouldn’t let me preside over it because the Sonofs still despised me with every fiber of their being. It’s the same with the Uniteds and Meln Sonoforn. Since then, I’ve devoted my life to helping the Uniteds through non-military ways. You know, science and stuff like the goods we were transporting earlier. Odd that those means led me here.”

“Meln said he was sorry,” Cory said.

“I heard. But I can’t believe that, Cory. A man doesn’t do what we’ve done and, and… ah, forget it. Just tell him if he wants to kill me, I won’t stop him.” Jesson sneered at the thought, but then seemed almost welcoming of the idea.

“I thought you wanted me to rescue you?” Cory stood, and checked the captain’s wounds, worried that the excitement had put him in worse condition. He seemed sore.

“I do, but I can’t leave here without one of us dying,” Jesson said. Then his eyes brightened, and he tried to sit up suddenly, screaming in pain at the effort. Cory held him down gently and repositioned his arms.

“Stop doing that,” Cory said.

“You can do it, Cory,” Jesson said and grunted. “You can kill him. Avenge Middleton and avenge me. Kill him and then get me out of here. If you do that, I’ll make sure you’re forgiven for your betrayal.”

“What?” Cory was tired of that being his only response to shockingly new information.

“You can’t think my government will go easy on you after they hear what happened, do you? But don’t worry.” Jesson laughed. “It might be a good thing what you did. It let us get closer to Sonoforn. Now we can make sure he dies.” Jesson repeated the man’s name, whispering it over and over.

“You need to rest, Jesson, please,” Cory said, and pulled the blankets over Jesson’s shoulders.

Exhaustion seemed to take him, and the captain closed his eyes, mouthing Meln’s name over and over. Cory, distraught and exhausted himself, decided to go to his own tent and go to bed.

Cory burst through the door with a shattering crunch. He knew exactly where they’d be, and for a moment, he stood in the doorway staring down the hateful swine sitting at round tables, smoking and drinking. He gave them half a second head start. The two dozen men stood all at once, and drew their guns.

Cory pulled out his dagger and blasted away at the first five in front of him, his red blade flashing and sucking the life out of all it touched. He ran and rolled as the bullets flared around him. As he rolled, he blasted and killed several more when he reached the first table.

Its occupants had turned it over for cover, but Cory simply stabbed through it, cutting the leg of the man behind it. The man screamed as Cory brought the table up into the chin of the man next to him and whirled around, sending the table flying into the man with the automatic pistol behind him. Cory ducked and slashed up, the blood of his victim reddening his face, and weaved his blade through three more throats in one fluid, zigzagging motion.

He pulled a man close to him and used him as a shield, bullets ripping into the body as Cory blasted the few left standing. One shot came from behind a table. The dealer had a laser blaster. Cory took the blast with his blade and it glowed a brighter shade of red. Cory cut down a man a few feet away and quickly took the next laser blast in the blade again.

He stood, calmly, as two more shots went into his dagger. Then he pointed his blade at the dealer and, with a hateful grin, blasted. The man screamed as the table and the four or so people ducked behind it were incinerated in a deafening explosion as the energy absorbed from the laser enhanced Cory’s own raw power.

Cory didn’t hesitate. He’d killed twice as many on the way there, and ran through the door into the next room. Immediately, he absorbed a laser blast from a man waiting in ambush, an arm around Helen’s neck as if about to kill her. Cory used the power to shoot a hole through the man holding his sister. She and he fell to the ground as Cory blasted at the drug lord standing in terror. He dropped his rifle and stumbled. It was only a stunning blast. Cory wanted the filth for his hands.

Cory ran to the man and put his hands around his throat. The drug lord went wide-eyed with fear as Cory felt power surge from the evil man into his body. Veins pulsated on the drug lord’s face, and he tried to shout but his life now flowed out of him like water. After a few strangled gasps, he fell to the floor, limp.

Cory panted a few seconds, and stared down at the empty shell at his feet. He pulsated with the absorbed strength, but forced the energy into his dagger, transforming it into water. He shook off the now dim blade.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he turned and saw his sister, drugged into a stupor and looking like she’d recently been beaten. “Helen, I’m sorry,” Cory said, and hugged his pale, twig-like sister. She smiled at him through a daze and tried to get up.

It was at this moment that Cory saw the carnage around him, the blood and water still on his dagger. He shivered, then let go of his sister, trying to back away from what he saw. He cried in anguish, for Helen, for what he’d done. “So much blood,” Cory cried, and frantically shook his dagger, vainly trying to get the thick, red liquid off.

All the sudden, more men barged into the room. Cory cried out to his sister and tried to protect her. He knew that if he did then he’d kill the attackers. Blood, so much blood, and he wanted no more of it. But he couldn’t let his sister die. He couldn’t!

Cory willed his muscles to move, but they refused. He felt like ice, frozen solid and without the power to save his sister or kill any more.

The men leveled their guns on his sister.

Bang!

Cory sprang up, and sucked in the wondrously cold air. He panted a few moments and looked around, desperately. He was in his tent. It was dark. He could move freely. He breathed in a long sigh of relief, and fought the tears away.

The dream had come again. Despite all his efforts and all his meditations, he still could not keep his subconscious away from the terrible act he’d committed. But this night, the dream was different. All the other times, the dream ended when he sat down and cried over the killing. Now he saw a new nightmare, one where he stood motionless and watched a carnage he’d caused and could do nothing to stop.

As he clenched his fists in anguish, Cory knew exactly what the dream meant.