This was supposed to be the last chapter before the final epilogue style chapter, but even though this chapter takes up about three times the words of most preceding chapters, and even though for all of the story, giving birth to this chapter turned out to be a real challenge. I still simply didn't manage to fit the final epic battle into a single chapter as I planned.

I hope even though this chapter might be a bit on the long side for a steemit post, you will enjoy it.

You can find an index of all previous chapters from this story here and I hope to post the latest two chapters of this story before this month is over.

Sisters

Debrisphere, September 19th, 2047

“She is such a brave girl. I don’t know whether to be scared or proud right now Daki… err, Gandalf. Do you think they’ll make it back?” Bjarne asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice.
“Let’s just try to make sure first they’ll have a place to come back to Merlin!” Dakilla responded, trying to sound confident, but things had gotten too weird in the last thirty minutes even from his wizard mindset. They were on a living spaceship. Shaped like a wolf-shaped robot, but this giant wolf hadn’t been a robot, at least not by any definition Dakilla could align himself with. Just as they had teamed up with the three-man crew of the mythical Fenrir alien, the giant Wolf had been hit by a HEOPS. All logic dictated the spaceship should at least have been perforated with tiny holes if not ripped to pieces by the kinetic energy of the small but solid projectiles that made up the swarm of objects, launched many years ago into their highly elongated orbits in order to destroy all orbital communication systems. Instead though of major damage to the living space-ship, a short quake-like movement went through the ship for a few seconds, somehow resulting in a seven percent increase in both the size and the mass of the ship. The alien ship, while alive, needed a human pilot for navigation. And as humans weren’t ‘compatible’, a wounded, alien looking, grey humanoid somehow acted as an in-between. The crew of the ship consisted of the wounded humanoid, a young geeky looking kid who acted as pilot, and a New-Zion operative.
Wietse had visited the other living ship before it disappeared into a huge M-Brane-fold sphere. The old man that was to pilot the second ship had been fitted with Quant-augmentation and Roverandom Interface by Wietse. Now the three-man crew that next to the old pilot consisted of Wietse’s granddaughter and another grey hominid. Fitted with brane-folding folding tech, the ship was to make its way ‘home’ three million light-years away to the Triangulum Galaxy. No wonder the Wietse was nervous about his granddaughter ever returning. Hell, navigating the planet with M-Brane folds was hard enough. Just imagine having to find your way back to earth from a different galaxy. Finding our little sun amongst two hundred billion stars! But then, war demanded sacrifices, no-one knew that like Dakilla did. If there was only one percent chance that his granddaughter would be able to get alien reinforcement of the caliber of this giant wolf, then a ninety-nine percent probability of never making it back home was a chance that had to be taken. Not the words Wietse needed to hear right now though. Dakilla knew he needed to be Gandalf right now and Wietse needed to be Merlin. No room for being Admiral Kitu, no room for that mentality. No, they were wizards now and wizards could do anything. This old man, Sleipnir's pilot, he was a wizard now.
"Väinämöinen will bring your granddaughter back safely Merlin, a great wizard will not ever let his guild down" Dakilla spoke with confidence.
Wietse smiled for a second at this remark than let out a deep sigh.

"John, it's Xavier, what are you doing aboard that monstrosity? What happened to the octopod spaceship?" a heavily French-accented male voice suddenly sounded through the shortrange radio device the New-Zion operative was holding. The lean but muscular agent with long dreads and well-tailored suit typical of New-Zion agents had tried to contact the debrisphere mining vessel they had encountered in the Van Allen belt, using different frequencies, but so far his hails had not gotten any response from the ship. Dakilla had not expected the persistence of this handsome black man to yield any results anymore. Let alone a response indicating a link between a New-Zion operative and a debrisphere miner.
"Shit, I don't remember! Stupid erasure, guys, what do I do?" John asked, looking at Wietse, then looking at Dakilla for a split second, then looking back at Wietse.
Damn, years of leading the largest and most effective cyber army this world had ever seen and who does Mr. New-Zion look at for authority? While Dakilla had no issues taking second place behind Wietse, after all, the old man was brilliant, the fact was that John would have no way of knowing that. But then it hit Dakilla, it was the costumes. Yes, Wietse looked the part and the more time passed, the more Wietse started to actually play the part as well. Or play? No! Wietse wasn't just playing.He wasn't acting. While Dakilla loved getting carried away in the cosplay on steroids with the costumes and the tech, Wietse actually was a wizard now, the way he carried himself. A real wizard. Wietse had become one with the tech, had become one with his attire.
"I happen to know Xavier is New-Zion, just like you. Xavier Latour was your partner when you got abducted, well, in my backyard, basically. Just greet him like you know him and tell him to expect a friendly visitor. I'll drop in and discuss the situation. Be sure to tell him I'm a friend. Xavier and I weren't exactly on friendly terms last time we met."
How the hell did Wietse know all this? Where did he get his intell from? Damn, cut it out Gandalf! Wizard mode, remember? Dakilla had to remind himself to stop thinking like an admiral. Wietse and he were wizards now. The rules of war didn't apply, not as they did before anyhow,.
"Xavier Latour?" John asked with admiration and surprise in his voice. "The Haitian Ogre is my partner? No way!" John then exclaimed in disbelieve? "Xavier Latour is a legend. The best soldier who ever lived."
"Just tell him to expect a visitor! Tell him I'm a friend!" Wietse commanded in an agitated tone.
John looked at his transceiver and pushed the speak button. "Mister Latour, sir, I mean Xavier, please stand by and expect a visitor, an old friend."

Dakilla's eyes widened as an entry sphere appeared before Wietse.
"Noooo!" Dakilla shouted, but it was too late. Wietse stepped into the sphere. Dakilla's admiral mode had kicked in again. This Xavier guy was an ex-soldier and now a New-Zion operative. Dakilla realized that Wietse knew this Xavier and that they hadn't exactly been as close friends. There was something between them. John, his 'partner' had addressed Xavier as 'Mr. Latour' telling him to expect a visitor, 'an old friend'. This wouldn't end well! Xavier would interpret this differently than both John and Wietse expected him to.
Xavier's French accent combined with this very situation brought back a memory from years before. Bratislava! This Xavier guy; if he was anything like that stupid grunt Matatu, if his mind worked like the soldier mind Dakilla expected him to poses, then Wietse was in big trouble. Xavier would be expecting a quite different type of 'old friend' than John and Wietse
Intended to communicate.
"Fuck it, we are fucking wizards!" Dakilla shouted out as he materialized a silvery sphere at his feet. He could see the room now. "Fuck!" Wietse was looking down into the room where Wietse had jumped into. The old man was lying on the floor, two women were kneeling next to Wietse. Then Dakilla noticed the growing puddle of dark red blood on the right side of Wietse's head. There was something off about the puddle, but with the distortion from the sphere, Dakilla couldn't make out what it was.
"The motherfucker killed Merlin!" Dakilla shouted at John. "Your fucking partner killed the smartest guy this planet has ever seen, and it's your fucking fault you asswipe!"
Dakilla jumped up, keeping the sphere in exit mode as long as he could. He needed to see where he was going and he couldn't risk Xavier to see him before he was there in the room with him before it was too late even for a New Zion agent to respond. It was a maneuver one of his home base team had come up with. These hackers weren't up to working in the field, but their gamers mentality could come in handy in the field. A cascade of different M-brane folds would ram his enemy face first into a wall at a speed high enough to incapacitate even a big guy like this while allowing Dakilla himself to land comfortably with nothing but a little leap after the last fold traversal. As Dakilla dropped through the first sphere, he created two new entry spheres. One for himself to fall through and the second at the big guy's feet. But then as Dakilla kept dropping, he noticed something was off. Xavier didn't drop, he sank slowly, fear showing in his eyes as he tried to reach out for something to grab hold off. It was as if Xavier was standing on a platform that was slowly being lowered. Then as Xavier emerged deeper his huge body picked up speed and a fear in his eyes that delighted Dakilla was the last he saw of him. His own fall though was something quite different. Where Xavier's drop had had a slow start and a fast ending, Dakilla's drop was the reverse. He wasn't falling down, he was 'floating' down!
"Shit! Microgravity!"
Dakilla's hacker might have devised a useful move for use on earth or even aboard the living spaceship with its artificial dot four g gravity, Dakilla hadn't anticipated microgravity aboard the debrisphere mining craft.
The movements of the people he had witnessed had given him no reason to suspect virtual weightlessness.
At the very moment, Dakilla realized his mistake, AMPG. Magnetic boots and floor plates that dynamically mimicked gravity aboard metal space crafts, at that very moment Dakilla felt something or someone tucking on his coat. Shit, all of their tactics had used gravity and inertia, and at this moment Dakilla had neither at his disposal. Microgravity and neither he nor the people in the room had enough inertia for him to work with.
"Motherfuckers! You've killed him! The big motherfucker killed Merlin!" Dakilla shouted without knowing who was holding his body suspended above his projected exit sphere. He could grow the sphere and drop himself and whoever was holding him into normal gravity through complete immersion. Or could he? But then, that still wouldn't get him out of the situation he was in right now.Whoever had grabbed hold of him now was in a position where that person could easily end his life. Sinking down into normal gravity might actually end up being exactly what could trigger his attacker to opt for making use of that option.
"Don't hurt him, Pete!" The younger one of the two woman crouched at Wietse's side stood up and looked at Dakilla intensely. A middle-aged woman of African descent who looked at him as if she knew him, as if ….. as if he was a ghost or something. Did he know this woman? "I can't believe it! I think I know who this is!" The woman spoke in a friendly voice while looking at him in disbelieve. Dakilla realized from the accent now that this woman was West Indian, but not New Zion, no, the accent was a mixture of a genuine west Indian accent with traces of Scandinavian, maybe Dutch.
"I believe you've caught yourself a little big criminal. This is Mr. de la Vega, Dakilla de la Vega if I'm not mistaken"
Dakilla panicked. How did this woman know his name? His full name? Think Dakilla, think, I need to keep my cool.
"Who the hell is Dakilla de la Vega?" A male voice behind him spoke. He sounded European. He sounded like a European grunt! But that didn't add up. If Xavier was New Zion and this guy holding a grip on his coat was an NNT grunt, what in heaven's name were New Zion and a former NNT soldier doing on a debrisphere mining vessel? But if this was an NNT grunt, it could be remotely possible this was one of 'his' NNT grunts.

"C-184 D-19 78-9-42, soldier identify!" Dakilla spoke as if certain this was one of his former NNT grunts, but he wasn't certain at all. Dakilla was grasping at straws. The lady knew who he was. Who he had been before everything had started.She knew his name his full name.

"P-89 77-14 S94" the voice behind him spoke. The first step of the identification handshake completed. Dakilla couldn't believe his luck.

"A-1984 I-99 00-01" Dakilla responded.

"What in heaven's name are you doing Pete?" The woman spoke.

"This no criminal Rachella, one second." The hand now had released Dakilla's coat but he was still left there floating. And he started tilting a bit around his vertical axis.

"C-48-35 I-27 92-99" the now friendly male voice responded. "Welcome aboard my ship Admiral"

"Like hell he is an admiral!" the woman spoke in a snappy voice. "Listen Pete, I've been working on this case every moment of my spare time running stochastic biometric modeling on every piece of broad-spectrum genetic material available. I'm one hundred percent sure this guy is Dakilla de la Vega, one of four remaining suspects, all presumed dead. The very fact that he is alive can mean only one thing: this guy, Dakilla de la Vega, is the pendejo that pulled off the quantum blockchain heist back in twenty-seven."
"You know I'm not Robert, right? That technobabble is total gibberish to me, lady. I'm sorry to burst your academic bubble, Rachella …." Pete spoke while handing Dakilla a pair of magnetic boots, "... but I'm 100% sure this man here, his silly gnome outfit notwithstanding, is a former SAGDA admiral. Admiral 0001, Rachella, I do believe we are in the presence of the mythical Admiral Kitu"
As Dakilla activated his boots and found himself being attracted to the floor of the room in a way that felt almost indistinguishable from regular gravity. As he landed on the floor he looked at Wietse. An old lady was sitting there next to Wietse's body. Much of the puddle of blood behind his head had dissipated into a few dozen bubbles floating through the room and Dakilla realized it probably hadn't been a real puddle to begin with. Hid hero. His idol, laying there, death on the floor because of that oversized grunt. The old lady held her hand to Wietse's head and stared at Dakilla with the most intense of looks.

"Il n'est pas mort" the woman spoke in French.

Dakilla didn't understand much French but this much he understood. Wietse was still alive. Then the woman seemed to caress her hair, but hen Dakilla noticed something glinstering in her hand. It was a tiny blade, no more than four centimeters long that the woman apparently had concealed within her hair.

"Où est Xavier? S'il est mort, je vais tuer ton grand-père rapidement. S'il est mort je te tuerai vraiment bas."

The old woman wanted to know where he had sent the big guy. Dakilla wasn't sure about the French, but if there was any doubt about the words, the vicious look in the old woman's eyes and the tiny blade pressed against Wietse's carotid artery left no room for doubt. While the woman looked old and frail, Dakilla felt sure she could follow up on her threat, whatever it was she was threatening them with. One thing was sure though, the crew of this ship wasn't exactly a team.
"What is the silly hag doing? Woman, cut out the bullshit! The admiral is on our side!" Corporal Pete spoke and took two steps towards the woman. Then the third step, as if the NNT corporal had gone from completely sober to being drunk as a lord, taking one step to the right, slamming his head into what looked like a wall cabinet for key storage.
"Shit, Admiral, the lady is a conduit, that would explain the old man hitting himself in the head with his stick!" Corporal Pete spoke while taking out an oily blue handkerchief from his vest pocket and put it on his head, wiping off some of the blood from his brow.

Fuck! A conduit. Dakilla always had dismissed the stories about New Zion conduits as superstitious nonsense. Urban myths spread by New Zion as part of their wartime propaganda. The idea of agents being trained by witches or sorcerers with the supernatural power to turn a person's mind, a person's weaknesses into a weapon of their own destruction had been just too ludicrous for words. But now after having been on the Fenrir spacecraft, after having met a wounded Hylobo Sapiens, having witnessed the symbiotic telepathic relationship between the ship, its human pilot and the Hylobo in between, a conduit wasn't actually all that far-fetched anymore. In fact, come to think of it, 'conduit' might describe the function of the Hylobo in this symbiosis pretty well. Dakilla looked at the woman. Het determined look changed from one of anger into one of fear.
"Don't let them take me!" The woman cried out, reaching out her hand to Dakilla while resting her chin on her chest in a pleading gesture. Her French accent had been massive, but as Dakilla's french was almost nonexistent, to Dakilla that was a welcome change. Both the change in language and the change in the posture from a murderous bitch into a fearful and timid creature. Then Dakilla looked at the old woman more closely. He hadn't noticed it before because he hadn't had any reason to lay the link, and because it had been relatively subtle. Yes, he had noticed that something had been off with the way this lady looked. Something was strange about her but in a strangely familiar way. How could he have missed it. While her general features were normal. An elderly, somewhat short lady of mixed-race descent. It was the length of her extremities in proportion to her body that gave it away, but only if you knew what to look for. Her arms were slightly long for the length of her torso, while her legs were slightly short. Not as expressed as it had been in the Hylobo Sapiens, but combined with the telepathic abilities, the similarities combined were just too uncanny, but more importantly too many to be attributable to mere chance. If she had been young instead of an old woman this might have been someone's idea of a war-time weapon, but she was too old for that. Someone had interbred Hylobo with humans and this woman, no likely all of the New Zion were hybrids!

"They don't know, they mustn't know!" The lady looked at him knowingly.

She was inside of his head, but she meant no harm. Dakilla understood that now. It was her, not Xavier who had incapacitated Wietse. She had tapped into Xavier's mind, recovered whatever history Wietse and Xavier shared. She had considered Wietse an imminent threat and had used her Hylobo mind tricks to make Wietse knock himself out with his staff. But Dakilla's admiral's mind understood much more now. She was bred for this! Bread as a pilot for Fenrir. She wasn't just a conduit in the way that Hylobo were. Fenrir and Sleipnir required a symbiosis of three. The living ship, a human pilot, and an Hylobo conduit. These human conduits? This lady, they could be both pilot and conduit at the same time.

"I must ask, what year were you born?" Dakilla asked.

"My sisters and I were born in the summer of mille neuf cent soixante dix, nineteen hundred and seventy" the woman spoke sounding almost like a frightened little girl now. "None of us know our exact birthday."

It was astounding. The woman was seventy-seven years old, born the year after the Apollo eleven mission that was somehow linked to the discovery of Fenrir on the moon. And now, at this senior age, this woman and the living wolf-shaped spaceship Fenrir found themselves together in the debrisphere. New Zion might not have created these hybrids, the fact that this woman was even on this mission could mean only one thing: New Zion knew!
"Xavier didn't, or I would have" the woman snapped angrily.
The mention of Xavier made Dakilla think about the situation he left poor innocent Xavier in. The poor guy had been going through a rollercoaster ride for almost ten minutes now. Dakilla's team had set up a number of cyclic M-Brane folds for keeping Jötnar of different sizes suspended in rollercoaster fashion a few hundred meters above Atlantic ocean. The configuration of folds was so that the acceleration gained by falling down would be transformed rotationally into upward, forward and backward speed. One second Xavier would be falling down feet first, then next he would be launched forward feet first his face facing the clouds above in an inclined manner only to fall, back first, into the next fold and be launched again slightly inclined way with his face facing the ocean at an angle of about 45 degrees. Xavier was too angry to care before, but now it was hard not to feel pity for the big guy.
"Guys, someone is getting nervous here!', the younger woman interrupted, pointing at the two men walking up and down the adjoining room nervously.

"Krijg de kanker!" Corporal Pete cursed while looking at a display. "Guys, think we have a problem, something is out there!, I'll put it on the big screen."

The wall of the room changed color from a metallic look to white, then a view of the debris outside appeared. The debris was moving around in its regular disorganized patterns, but then Dakilla recognized a familiar shape. A Kong type Jötnar, alive and well was grabbing at larger pieces of debris, making its way towards their ship. Then Dakilla noticed another and yet another.

"Guys, this is why we, me and Wietse are here. I've got this."
Dakilla looked at the trajectory of one of the Kong's, materialized a sphere in front of it that it clearly couldn't evade in time and when the sphere disappeared, so had the Kong.

"Where did it go?" Corporal Pete asked.

"It's in the Sahara desert working up a little sweat."

"Xavier?" The old lady indignantly reminded him, then a dizziness came over him, a silvery bright sphere appeared before him and the huge mountain of a man came tumbling towards him, almost crushing Dakilla against the wall.

As the big guy collapsed on top of him, Dakilla felt all air being pressed from his longs. The guy was huge. Even bigger than Dakilla had assessed when he was looking at him from above. Dakilla pulled up his legs a bit and after some wiggling manages to firmly place his left foot against the big guy's chest. Dakilla wasn't strong enough to push Xavier away, but he manages just enough room to get his right foot placed firmly against Xavier's belly. Dakilla pressed and pressed with both feet and yes, there was movement, enough for Dakilla to gasp for air before trying a second time.

"Let me help you with that, " Pete spoke as he places hit arms under Xavier's shoulders and started pulling the giant of a man away. Pete pulled, Dakilla pressed with all of his might and yes, the big guy was moving. Then Xavier's eyes opened. There was a wild yet foggy look in his eyes. Their eyes met for a short moment but at that moment the expression on Xavier's face left no doubt about what was going to happen next.

"Fuck! Shit! No!" Dakilla shouted, but to no prevail. A stream of gritty vomit came pouring from the giant's mouth. As the sour stench of Xavier's vomit filled his nostrils, Dakilla found the extra strength needed and as he pushed with all his might, Xavier rolled off from on top of him grunting deeply.

Dakilla quickly took off all of his vomit covered wizard attire and while wiping his face clean with his wizard's cape, looked at the viewing screen in anticipation. This was not good. The Kong Jötnar were nowhere to be seen but the picture Dakilla saw allowed for only one explanation. A growing number of pieces of debris seemed to share a common attribute to their trajectory. This really was bad.

"Stupid hag, couldn't you just have waited two fucking minutes, silly witch?" Dakilla snarled at the old woman. "The Jötnar are all on top of us now, tearing apart this ship. Now we'll have to fucking evacuate the ship".

"Evacuate 'my' ship? The hell we will. How about I'll try to land her in your 'sweaty' desert?"

"Hell, yes!, steer forward, now!", as Dakilla commanded Pete to steer his ship forward, a huge darkness formed in front of them.

"What the hell?" Pete spoke in surprise.

"Just steer her into the darkness and get ready for landing her a bit faster than you were considering. We are jumping into the atmosphere, two kilometers above the Sahara desert."

As the ship exited the M-Brane fold, the viewing screen went completely yellow for a second then as the camera system adjusted, the contours of the desolate desert landscape below became visible.

"Hey, looks like I missed all the fun" Dakilla looked at Wietse who was picking himself up from the floor. Looked like he was quite alright, but was he still sharp enough to come back with him to fight more Jötnar.

"Pete, me and the old bloke are going to go back to the debrisphere now, make sure you put her down in the hot sun at a safe distance from everything. Shouldn't take our stowaways outside more than half a minute to break out in a deadly sweat."

"Like hell, you are Mr. de la Vega, you aren't leaving me stranded in this conjo desert. We came on this trip for my cousin and my pupil and we found you, Mr. big shot blockchain robber. Either you guys help me get Robert and John to safety or so help me God, I'll drag your thieving behind through this dessert to the nearest police station." The woman looked at Dakilla like she meant it and could actually follow up on her threat, and even though Dakilla knew she couldn't do anything to stop him here in full gravity, the menacing look on the woman's face reminded Dakilla of his mother in a way.

"Have the old man take you" the old woman responded in her heavy French accent, "I need this one to pick up a few of my sisters first"

Cover art by Keith Draws