Free Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) by J. Barton Mitchell Page A

again.
    “No!” Zoey shouted, refusing to project back. She wouldn’t help these things do to someone else what they had done to her. She wouldn’t, no matter what answers she might receive or what she might learn.
    Guide. Ease. Allay. The entity kept sinking, closer and closer. Zoey could feel the heat coming from the thing, and the closer it got, the more her head filled with a kind of horrible static.
    Zoey stepped back, shaking her head. “No.”
    And then the crystalline shape sank into the man’s body. Even though he was Succumbed, he gasped as the energy absorbed into him. More and more of it pushed in, and, as it did, his skin began to glow incandescently, lighting up the strange, black room even brighter.
    Then something awful happened.
    The man’s shape flashed. Something like flames burst from his skin, and before Zoey could shut her eyes to block out the sight, she saw his body disintegrate into chalky white ash that billowed into the air like a milky cloud.
    Zoey fell to her knees in stunned, horrified shock.
    She kept her eyes shut tight, refusing to look back up at the open chamber, not wanting to see it empty now.
    “No, no, no, no…” she moaned, but it did little good. The man was gone. Just like that, and she, however unwittingly, had played a role. Her refusal to help had led to his death.
    All around her she felt new projections, and the emotion was almost a singular one. Disappointment.
    She had not performed as the aliens hoped. It was the one consolation she had.
    Why? The sensation entered her mind. She opened her eyes and glared back up at the crystalline shape. She hated them, she realized, and a part of her didn’t like the feeling. She hated the Assembly for everything they had put her through. She would destroy them, if she could.
    And that was exactly what she was going to do, she promised herself. Somehow …
    The empty pod shuddered as it lifted off the floor, closing and drifting away on the rack system. Almost immediately, another pod appeared, rumbling downward and settling in the same position and slowly opening.
    Zoey could just see another human shape inside. Her stomach churned as she realized it was all going to happen again.
    “Please, don’t…” Zoey begged, watching the blue and white entity float back into position. “Please.”
    Guide. Ease. Allay. The same projections again.
    Without thinking, Zoey stood and looked.
    Inside was a woman this time. With blond hair that glowed like honey. She was beautiful, and the sight of her took Zoey’s breath away. Not just because she was so pretty … but because Zoey recognized her, and the realization hit her like a lightning bolt.
    “Wait…” Zoey cried, but the entity began to sink again.
    Guide. Ease. Allay.
    “ Wait! ” It didn’t stop, it kept descending. Zoey’s eyes moved back and forth between the entity and the woman underneath. Most of her face was hidden under the tubes and wires, but it was her, and there was no way it was a coincidence.
    It had been Zoey’s plan to resist the aliens’ wishes, whatever their agenda. She was here to save Mira and Holt and the Max. Even if they had put a hundred bodies in front of her and made her responsible for their deaths, she would still have resisted, because something inside her told her it was the lesser of two evils.
    But … now …
    The woman in the chamber. How could it be?
    Guide. Ease. Allay.
    The entity continued to descend, burning toward the female body.
    Zoey watched a second longer … then made her choice. They had forced her hand.
    She reached out with her mind and found the presence of the descending entity. Next, she reached out for the eerily silent blankness of the woman in the chamber.
    She wasn’t sure exactly how to do it, to help the entity descend into the woman, and she only had seconds to figure it out. Zoey reached out for something she had come to depend on. The Feelings rose within her, and Zoey listened, studying the paths they