Page 68 of Taurus's Quest
Circe glanced at Aquarius. “If the rock needs me to touch it continuously to feed power to the scout, then that means I might not be able to let go while you activate the device. Here’s what you need to do.” Circe launched into a crash course on how to work the dials, while Taurus could only stare, memorizing every facet of her face. Her voice. Her scent.
Damn her for being brave.
Damn her for being perfect.
At the end of her speech, she leaned close to Taurus and whispered, “I’m expecting a reward after I save the world.”
“Anything you want, honey.”
“Okay then, let’s do this.” Circe took a deep breath before reaching for the alien stone. This time she tightened her jaw and held on. She poked the finger with the scout into a dimple, and her whole body stiffened. Her head went back, and gibberish emerged from her mouth.
“I think she’s speaking alien,” someone whispered.
Sure sounded like it, and it raised the hairs on his body.
When she stood with the stone fisted and began to run for the edge of the rooftop, Taurus captured her, swinging her off her feet, ignoring her inhuman screeches and the flailing of her limbs. While he wanted to tear that rock from her hand, she counted on him to help her see this through. It killed him though. Would this work? Would this invasion of her mind mean he’d lost her forever?
Despite his doubts, though, he carried her to the box and crouched. Aries knelt on the opposite side.
“Let me help you, brother.”
He gave Aries a nod. “Thanks.”
While Taurus kept her wrapped tight, Aries pried the fist clutched to her chest and stretched it over the machine and then down until the jutting butt of the stone touched the dial. They locked together like magnets, and the whole thing began to glow.
“Holy fuck, it’s working,” Sagittarius exclaimed.
Aquarius spun the dials, and as gears locked into place, the glow brightened. Everyone knew when the mechanism activated because a beam of light shot into the vast sky, spotlighting the asteroid.
Awakening the constellations.
Who then put their avatars to work.
Chapter 20
The moment the nanobot made contact with the rock, Circe got swept up in a maelstrom. At least that was how it felt. Images flashed in her mind; places she’d never seen because they didn’t exist on Earth. Creatures soaring through a mauve sky. Orange oceans that burped massive whales with spiked spines and tentacles. Bug-like things that scurried from a dark cone under three red suns.
She drowned in information, most of which she couldn’t understand but for one thing.
I’m no longer in control.
Jarring and terrifying. While Circe could see and hear everything happening around her, she no longer commanded her body. When she suddenly bolted for the edge of the parapet, infused with an urgency meant to destroy herself, try as she might, she couldn’t stop her flight.
When Taurus caught her, she tried to punch and kick him, even as she commanded herself to go limp. He carried her to the box, and Aries forced the hand holding the rock atop the knob, and a jolt went through her.
Through it.
The nanobot went into full-blown panic, and she inwardly cheered because it meant this would work.
What happened next proved both astonishing to the astronomer but terrifying to the human being. Her consciousness, in the form of light, shot from the rooftop into the sky. Past the atmosphere encasing earth. Through the orbit filled with satellites, right into space itself.
Her mindful glow surrounded the massive asteroid, a pitted rock that vibrated at her arrival. A tremor of fear as it turned out.
Bright streaks shot at the alien ship from all directions. Slamming into it. Creating cracks. As those projectiles of light—the warriors turned into pure energy—kept striking, chunks of the asteroid began breaking off, spinning into space.
Forcing herself to look away, even as she didn’t have eyes to do so, Circe realized the missiles appeared to be coming from clusters of stars, the constellations to be exact, reacting to the alien threat in their solar system. Destroying it as they’d destroyed the one that came before.
When the asteroid exploded, leaving behind only debris, she heard a wail, possibly imagined, but she liked to think it was the invaders realizing their defeat.
