14
The Federation’s ships were still arriving. The others were gone now, out in the streets fighting to save those who had escaped the first wave of the bombs. Drake had not gone down; he was the commander of the weapon, and now that the time had come to deploy it, he was not sure if he could.
He kept trying to formulate a plan that would keep him from having to use her. A plan that would keep him from losing her.
He could refuse to use her.
He could turn her against them; it was obvious from her speech that she had the willingness to walk away from that fight—but maybe not the ability. If he was the one who guided the weapon, could he not simply refuse to fire it?
Yes, probably, but she might have the ability to use herself without his direction, and if she did, he would still lose her to Tralam.
Drake paced the floor, his body demanding action as he tried to overcome the sorrow and the anger that kept hitting him like a ton of bricks that had sharp edges along with a killing weight. He had to hurt her, turn her completely away from him so she would refuse to allow him to be the one who could guide that weapon within her, that weapon that was as seductive as it was deadly, that weapon that promised endless power and death to any who opposed him.
Had to. The desire to use her, to force her to use that weapon lodged within her to assure himself his place in history had been what had driven him away from her, and he hated himself for it even as he knew that he could not stay with her.
He would destroy her happiness and shatter her already fragile heart and mind, and all for the glory he wanted so desperately.
This was no longer about bringing peace and ensuring the fall of the Federation.
This had somehow become about nothing but power, power that he wanted so badly to wield, and he knew that he was already corrupted by the longing for power, the power Lornia could bring to him, but at such a great cost to her that he could not allow it to happen.
Power or love.
Those were his options, and the hell of it was to have her love, he had to leave her.
Because he loved her.
He loved her too much to see her be killed, and she would die if she released the full power of the weapon inside of her. He knew she would too. Lornia would do that because she loved him and because she had no idea what she was actually capable of; she had no idea of what he would do with the power her abilities could bring to his arsenal.
Why?
The question took him to his knees. Tears, the first he had cried in decades, welled up in his eyes. Why could he not loose that need, shake it off, and be a better man? Why could he not let go of the need to be someone important, someone who would be remembered for many centuries, and why could he not stop wanting that flow of power he felt every time he was near her?
She was everything he had ever wanted in a mate, and she was everything he needed too, but to stay with her would be to kill her and to kill off whatever goodness remained within himself too.
Blade spoke from close by. “She’s angry at you.”
Great. Just what he needed. Blade seeing him on the floor, bent and broken. Drake clambered to his feet slowly. “She has good reason to be.”
Blade stood there with his hair messy and his eyes hooded. “Now is not the time for you to have personal problems. The entire armada of the Federation is headed in our direction, and every ship is loaded with neutron bombs. Nothing can survive that onslaught. You have to know that. They will kill it all and then claim the remnants and start over. Good people will die. Innocents. You have to figure this out.”
“I can’t do this to her. I can’t. You know what will happen to her. She can’t stand that; you know that.”
Blade said, “I do. The weapon was built to protect the universes, and she is the weapon now.”
Drake said, “I can’t do that to her just to win this fight.”
Blade sighed. “I know how you feel. I don’t want this either. None of us do. But we don’t know what she wants and you walking away from her is not making her want to help us, that’s for sure. They’re coming, and if we don’t do something, everyone on this planet will die today. Her included.”
Drake ran his hands through his hair. “I won’t do this.”
Blade snarled, “You have to. Think of the greater good here, you idiot! Tralam is fallen, and the doors are open. So far, the other universe hasn’t been made aware of that, or doesn’t care. It will eventually though, and that universe can end this one even faster than the Federation. We need her. We need her to stop the Federation, and we need her to close that damned door again, to re-form Tralam.”
Drake’s words held all the bitterness within his heart and soul. “You mean we have to force her to imprison herself again, to first destroy all the Federation’s power and then, as a reward, leave her alone in a world where nobody else can enter. That would kill her. Once the weapon’s power has been drained, she will be broken, and she will die, but even that will not be enough.
Blade said, “We have to stop them, Drake, and you alone can control her.”
“I don’t want her dead.”
