Earth

2027

Rory's squad was back together again. Well, as together as they ever would be. Nothing would ever be the same without Trin. It was so good to be with everyone, though, that she could not allow any sorrow to distract her.

"You're telling me Alix is married and you aren't?" Rory raised a brow at Nikka.

"I'll never be tamed," she said.

"I didn't think you'd ever get married." Rory smiled at Alix. "Good for you."

Nikka raised her brows. "The woman did a public service, saving ladies from two different worlds from his pursuits."

Alix sighed. "Look who's still jealous."

"So jealous." She rolled her eyes.

"Lyon, you finally settled down too." Rory squeezed his hand. "Babies?"

"Hopefully when we get back home." He placed his hand over hers. "How are you holding up?"

"I have no idea." She looked to each of her friends. "It's too much. It's like there's an ocean's worth of feelings inside me and I can't grasp it all."

Jace leaned against the wall, eyes on her now, face sad. With Nikka right beside her looping her arm through Rory's, Lyon sitting close enough in front of her for their knees to touch, and even Alix close by, it felt really strange for Jace to not be at her side. What they were going through was confusing and they'd oscillated between gravitating together like the old days and staying awkwardly apart. Because even though they had not talked about it very much yet, it was obvious that they both felt the same confusion about what to do with each other.

Rory almost reached out her arm for him, until she remembered how distant he used to get before they were together. Sometimes Jace needed to run away. It may have hurt too badly to be close to her right now.

"We don't have to talk about this stuff," Nikka whispered. "It's okay."

She looked away from Jace and made herself smile. "I'm just happy to be with you all again."

"We're just happy to not have to deal with Jace alone anymore." Nikka grinned. "I never knew how much work you had to put into him. Lyon and I have struggled to keep him on track."

The laugh shook her shoulders. Jace smirked.

After spending a few more minutes catching up, they started talking about what they needed to discuss most.

"We couldn't figure out the transportation system." Nikka crossed her arms, voice low and somber. "As hard as we fought for ten years, sometimes it feels like we have nothing to show for it."

"You gave us so much data," Rory said. "That isn't true."

"We need to connect with other planets." Alix anchored his elbows against his knees. "A good strategy with you as Witness will help, though. Have you thought this through?"

Rory nodded. "We know that the Witness for our world encouraged everyone to resist Vehru and the Federation. Here on Earth, Vehru has orchestrated confusion about me. I don't think it really matters to her that some people rally behind me. Her goal is simply to cause confusion and to keep people divided. One group will see me as an icon of injustice. They'll think I betrayed my own people by allying with my captors to negotiate a better life for myself. The other group will see me as a freedom fighter who wants to protect Earth. Some people will have no idea what to think. Vehru can use each of those perceptions."

Jace nodded. "I don't think it would even benefit her that greatly if you told people to support her, because there's a good percent of the population who will never believe you if you say that. People are going to think what they want to about you. She's helping them to become more entrenched in how they see you."

"Which means, you have to find a different role to play." Lyon nodded at Aeryn.

"Vehru chooses Witnesses who fit the profile she wants." Aeryn sat back, thinking. "She needs me to be a revolutionary, so I'm a hero for the people who believe in me and a traitor for those who don't. I would imagine her plan is for me to help the world recover emotionally when they lose the war, because that's my instinct. To tell Earth not to lose spirit." Aeryn crossed her arms. "The only way to surprise Vehru and her Replica is to defy my usual behavior. That will be especially confusing for an AI."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"What does that mean?" Nikka asked. "The opposite of what you want to do would be to not fight, but that won't help anyone."

"Oh, I'll fight. Just not like me." Rory nodded. "It's in my nature to be careful, to try to do the right thing, to be fair."

"You're going to fight like Vehru." Jace held her gaze.

"It's time she had a taste of what she puts people through."

He grinned.

"And when I do speak to the world, it has to be personal. I want them to know what Vehru did to our family so they know what she could do to theirs." Rory wanted to tell her entire story without holding back out of fear of what Vehru could do. That was easier said than done. "I need to know everything. What are the battle plans?"

Jace led the explanation of Vehru's war strategy. "Phase 1 is all about looking like the heroes Vehru said we are. We're going to free prisoners of war, evacuate endangered citizens, offer advanced medical care to sick children."

"Well, great," Rory said. "We can't take medical care away from sick kids."

"The Replica has been playing the stock market for a long time with all these different accounts. Vehru has amassed a great deal of wealth on Earth. She's going to pay off medical debt and student loans for many people who need it the most while she also helps those who need things like access to clean water."

Rory dropped her head in her hands. "She can make even philanthropy evil."

"I don't think that's something new, Aeryn," Lyon said.

"Next comes insurrection." Jace's expression looks grim. "As she gains support on Earth, she will rapidly turn people against their governments. No matter what level of success she finds, it will be a challenge for the world to deal with. That's when we'll strike." Jace sat down and spoke with a heavy voice. "In phase two, we'll switch to lethal force and offer protection for anyone who wants to join the federation."

"What about the people who don't?" Rory asked.

"Our targets at this point will be strategic so that we can create the most damage with the least amount of casualties. It's not until phase three that ordinary civilians might be killed."

"Vehru hopes for phase three to last only days," Nikka said. "It'll be bad but short-lived."

Sickness churned in Rory's stomach. "We should give the world these battle plans and all the data you brought."

"Levi."

That one name was the only thing needed from Jace to quiet any argument Rory could make. Rory knew from her training prior to coming to Earth that Vehru would allow her to share her opinion with the world. But she could not share classified information such as war tactics. "We have to get that web out of his head. I want it out of all of us, but as long as we get it out of him, then we can stop holding back."

"I'm not letting Vehru hurt you," Jace said.

"You're going to have to get over it." Rory knew it was a cruel thing to say, but he needed to hear the truth. "This is war."

His nostrils flared.

"I don't want her to hurt you either," Rory said. "But I know you'd rather die than live on her leash for the rest of your life. We can't let her take another planet."

The others looked at one another and then at Jace. The emotion on his face was so deep that Rory could not parse it. He'd never looked like that before. It stunned her to silence.

"Death would be mercy if you truly defied Vehru and Morfrain." Jace met her eyes with a burning stare now. "They won't kill us. They know exactly how far they can go and keep us alive. I'm not letting it happen to you."

The sick feeling strengthened and Rory swallowed hard. "What did they do to you, Jace?"

"They will never, and I mean fucking never, do it to you." Jace breathed heavily now. He turned away and leaned his hands against the wall. "Not to any of you. I need the web out of all of you."

Nikka leaned close to Aeryn to whisper. "Morfrain–"

"Don't," Jace said in a stern voice, head snapping to her over his shoulder.

"She needs to understand. You can't protect her from it." Nikka gripped Rory's hands. "After you were taken, Morfrain didn't feel like they had enough control of Jace. He made it a personal mission to force his loyalty."

Rory's muscles wound tight at the memory of Jace writhing on the floor and how it had felt when Vehru did it to her. Fear filled her at what Nikka might say. She'd known that Jace was lying when he said it hadn't happened very often to him.

"It was bad. Morfrain did it so much that Vehru banned him from Lumiea. Since she's in charge of the troops, she has ultimate authority planet-side. They had a major fight and Morfrain never came back."

"How long did it go on?" Rory asked, pain strangling her voice. The fear had started to swell into panic as thoughts of Morfrain tormenting Jace swept her imagination away.

"The only thing that matters," Jace said as he turned back to face her, "is that it's never happening to you."

"You should have told me," Rory said.

"It's in the past."

"Pain like that is never in the past. You carry it with you forever and it never leaves."

Her words seemed to quiet the group, including Jace. "How long did Vehru let it go on for?"

Her friends were looking at Jace and when he didn't answer, no one else did either. Rory wanted to tell him leaving it to her imagination was worse, only in this case, it may not have been. Hearing the details would only make it more real. It was ironic that love gave them the strength to fight against a federation that had conquered countless worlds before them, but also gave their enemy so much control over them. Never had a more powerful weapon existed.

Nikka rubbed her temple, eyes distracted. "Vehru put it in all of us and in Levi after banning Morfrain. She promised not to use it to hurt us, unless we completely betrayed her."

"Betrayed her." It was hard to speak, but Rory forced her voice out. "She said her? Not the federation?"

Jace's eyes widened. "Yes."

"We noticed that tension between Morfrain and Vehru before. Banning him from the planet?" Rory stood. "That's a major escalation between the two of them."

"The federation likes Vehru's tactics," Jace said. "She's apparently very effective. The power struggle likely runs far deeper than what we can see."

"It's hard to fight two wars at once." Rory's heart pumped harder. "I know what we need to do. And when it's done, we give Earth all that we have."