REDEEMER
©2021 N.D. REDDING
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Contents
ALSO IN WAR UNDYING
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Thank you for reading Redeemer
ALSO IN WAR UNDYING
More In Sci-Fi
ALSO IN WAR UNDYING
STARBLOOD
REDEEMER
BLOODMANCER
Preface
“In the 220 years since we joined the Commonwealth Federation, humankind hasn’t led a single war against itself. We have been integrated with such speed and force that the shock of this new world, this empire of the Ka and Imminy, overshadowed all the old fears. There was a new Other, so vast and all-encompassing that the thought of it made bitter enemies weep in each other’s arms.
But even such fear and cosmic horror, if you will, was mended in less than a decade by the uncountable new doors this new alliance opened. We have learned that the Ka are an ancient, compassionate race of beings whose understanding of the Universe brought them immeasurable knowledge in both scale and meaning. And yet they have spread their hands toward the whole galaxy, sharing this most precious of all resources.
We have learned that the Imminy are their conduit because only an Imminy has the mental capacity to carry their message. These genius beings are the torchbearers of the Ka, an honor humankind could aspire to…”
These are the official words of Astro Consul Freeman Red said on Ascendance Day this year. A man whose entire sector has been turned into a weapons manufacturing facility for the Imminy.
“It is completely true that no system, planet, country, or even tribe of humans has gone to war against its own kind again, and yet for 220 years since we joined the Commonwealth Federation, waging war was all we ever did.
Frederick Barrow Bieler, President of VFH (Voices from Home)
1
The Mortian guard was a bit too nervous and twitchy whenever in my presence. I could see the droplets of sweat popping through its red skin.
“Go on, dog, the warden is waiting for you,” he said with a half-trembling voice. The alien tried to come off tough, keep up appearances for the onlookers’ sake, as at the first sign of anxiety the inmates of Xan’s prisons could make him a target.
I nodded and said nothing. Even if I took down this guard and the next ten guards, there was still a whole army of them waiting for me. And if that wasn’t enough, the bracelet on my wrist that was officially called a prisoner control band, or as the prisoners affectionately called them “bursties,” would burst into flames and burn my arm and whole side to cinders. It wasn’t common for prisoners to attack guards because of this, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
The door to the warden’s office opened to a strange smell I never got used to in all this time. The guard entered first and I followed like an obedient slave.
“Prisoner L-93231, Richard Stavos,” the Mortian said, now feeling slightly bolder.
The wavering in his voice was gone when he stood in front of his superior. The warden was a tall Takkari whom I met but several times during my stay at this most prestigious institution. He glanced over at us for a second, waved the guard away, and then buried his face back into a screen where he was reading something.
“Go, Stavos won’t make any trouble,” he muttered. The guard spared me a menacing look that came off childish rather than scary and slithered away on his snake-like body.
I stood there waiting for Warden Rinslo to finally explain why he called me to his office after ignoring me for five years, but the Takkari kept fumbling with his screen as if I wasn’t even there. There was nothing I could do but wait, so I turned on my INAS, or Internal Nanite Analysis System, and rewound my last battle in the arena to check for any weaknesses I might have displayed during the fight.
I had fought two Oolan Jin warriors from the other side of Xan. They called them the Tunnel Brothers, which was as lazy a name for two Oolan Jins as you could imagine. What hadn’t been boring, though, was their fighting style. Half the time you had to keep your senses extremely sharp and follow the tremors around the arena so you could pinpoint their location. Fail to do so and they’d burst up right from underneath you, clawing you in half with their giant fangs.
I had saturated the ground with H-Nan cells during our battle, creating a loose network that helped me identify their locations. Both died while still tunneling from under me, which had gotten the crowd rather angry. They enjoyed seeing blood and torn bodies, not buried corpses. After they hadn’t come up for several minutes, the staff had to dig them out to confirm the kills.
The replay showed no significant mistakes on my side, though. Plenty of mistakes on theirs. Just as it finished, the warden finally graced me with another look and spoke.
“You qualified for the Sular Xan Games,” he said as our eyes met for a brief instant before returning to the screen as if not interested in my answer.
“I have, yes,” I replied.
I wasn’t too excited about it if I had to be honest. My last fight secured me a position in the Sular Games which happened once every five years when Xan made a full circle around its star. It was the most important event on Xan and a real opportunity for freedom if you happened to defeat thirty of the most vicious criminals in the galaxy with a little more than your bare hands
.
“You want to compete, I assume?”
“I do,” I said, realizing what the motive for this meeting could be.
“You’re scored first in your block, second overall in Kavaz Xan Prison so you should have every right to participate, right?” Rinslo said with a serious face.
“I still need your approval, sir,” I replied again, already knowing where this was heading.
“You do need my approval, Stavos. So, what are you willing to give me for my approval?” he asked with a hint of a grin.
“I shouldn’t have to give you anything, Warden. I qualify by merit.”
The Takkari sighed and intermeshed his fingers, then leaned his reptilian head on his leathery hands while looking studiously at me.
“Why would you want to make an enemy of me, Stavos? You want something. I want something. Let’s come to an agreement.”
Yeah right, an agreement. I had already earned my place in the tournament by walking over a mountain of bodies. A warden’s approval was a mere formality, yet I knew Rinslo could easily lock me out of the fights and destroy my only opportunity at freedom if I didn’t play his little game.
“What do you want, Warden?”
Rinslo smiled and leaned back into his chair. “You were Commonwealth Federation Forces.”
“I was.”
“You were a lieutenant. That’s very impressive.”
He waited for a moment to see if I’d comment on that. I wasn’t a lieutenant for longer than a week before I ended up in the damned prison. Not that it mattered what I used to be, as all that mattered in here were power and skill.
“So?”
“Not the talkative one as usual, huh? Anyway, you seem like you have your wits about you; no unjustified murders, no rape, and no theft in the last five years. You’re the poster boy Xan prisoner.”
I wondered what the hell he was talking about. No unjustified murders? Bad things happened in the last few years, bad things that I was part of more than once. Now he called them justified murders, but back then I spent a month in solitary and almost died of malnutrition. He was buttering me up for something he truly needed. I decided to go along with it and see how I could turn it to my advantage.
“You’re right, sir.”
“Of course I am, Stavos. I always am. But see, you were sent here as a deserter from the CFF. I wonder why?”
“A misunderstanding,” I said seriously.
Flashes of Detera worked their way up into my brain. I pushed them away immediately as I’d been doing for the last five years. I had made it a rule not to fantasize about revenge anymore. There were no Federation for me, no Detera, and no Persei Prime. I had to sever that connection for good or else Xan would have eaten me alive.
“It’s not important, anyway. The guards tell me you are close with the Eres Fars’kri.”
“It’s just Fars now as he was stripped of the ‘Kri’ a long time ago.”
“Ah, yes, the Eres and their misguided honor. Tell me, is he a stable inmate? Does he cause a lot of trouble?”
“Fars? Not if you leave him alone.”
“Ah, yes, yes, yes, then if I were to rely on the two of you as my bodyguards, would he obey my orders?”
Finally, he got to the point of this whole conversation.
“I can’t guarantee that even for myself.”
“No, no, of course not. But then again, both of you are up for the tournament and both of you would like to have a chance at freedom, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded. “Don’t we all, Warden?”
“Then you should talk to your friend and see what he thinks of my offer. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
“I have to ask, why would you need prisoner bodyguards? You have an army of Mortians around you.”
“I know that, Stavos.”
“So, you want me to just blindly accept this?”
Rinslo got up from his chair and grabbed his jacket. He pointed toward the door, telling me the meeting was over.
“I assume you accept the offer?”
I nodded despite not having any idea what kind of trouble I was getting us into. Another thing I learned in Xan was to accept the cards you were dealt. I didn’t like the idea of playing Rinslo’s bodyguard, and I knew Fars would hate it even more, but he would come around just as I had.
Just before we left the office, Rinslo stopped and turned to me. “One more thing, Stavos. I will also need a third bodyguard.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“You won’t like it,” he said with a smirk. I hated his God-awful face, no, not just his face. All of his morbid exterior.
“Does it matter?”
“Hah! No, it doesn’t. I like how quickly you catch up to everything. The third bodyguard will be Nameless.”
I stared at him in bewilderment for five whole seconds. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I am, Stavos. Don’t waste time thinking about it, instead use your time to get acquainted with the man.”
“He’s not a man.”
“He is what he is. I know you two don’t like each other much but you know the best friendships are made in times of distress or something like that. I heard a human say that once.”
“He’s Aloi.”
“He isn’t Aloi, and neither are you human. You’re all prisoners of Xan. That’s all you are until the moment you die or leave this place. Now go, I have a business to conduct.”
He said the last part with a strange urgency, almost pushing me out of his office. The idea of getting to know the Nameless, an Aloi Templar stuck in Xan for who knew what reason, was just absurd. How the hell could I work with an Aloi? The thought was so strange, so removed from reality that I just pushed it into the back of my mind as if it was no more than a bad dream. At least until the dream became reality.
The guard escorted me back to gen-pop, or the so-called general population where most of the prisoners of Xan’s Kavaz wing spent their time. My cell was on the sixth of fifty-two floors in the gargantuan prison complex. In front of it, Fars the Eres stood arguing with the Shia Martel. I already knew what this was about, so I just passed them silently, winking and nodding at Fars that we had to talk. I entered my cell and Fars soon followed.
“Your face is full of bad news,” he said with his low, gravelly voice. Even though he was beaten and betrayed, the Eres never stopped speaking the way all Eres did: with pride.
“You’re very observant,” I replied as he pushed something into his breast pocket. I didn’t think much of it and crashed down on my bed. The blue-skinned Eres outcast sat on the edge of my bed and waited patiently for several seconds. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he growled.
“Speak then!”
So I did. I told him the situation and Fars nodded slowly every time it became even worse.
“The Takkari have no honor. It’s a shame to be forced to work for them, but I am Kri’fus and my people have rejected me. I won’t spoil the code of my people by adhering to it. We shall do as asked.”
Fars always had a way of rationalizing whatever life threw at us. He never dwelled on what he could have done but took life at face value without remorse for anything but the reason he was cast out of Eres society.
“And the Nameless?”
“It is strange how life throws you at the mercy of your enemies.”
“Can you not speak in riddles?”
“We will make friends with the Nameless. You have made friends with me, after all.”
“You’re not a mindless killing machine sent to conquer the galaxy.”
“I’m not? How offensive,” Fars said with a serious look on his face. It only took us several seconds to burst out in laughter. It was only then that I realized why Fars was all right with the whole thing.
“You need creds?” I asked, knowing that he did. His years-long snapp addiction constantly threw him at the mercy of the Shia suppliers. Despite incredible victories in the arena, Fars still spent most of the little scrap he
made on snapp. He was probably the only drug-addicted Eres in the Galaxy.
“I bring disgrace to myself.”
“Oh, please, Fars, not again. You’re Kri’fus, an outlaw, you said it yourself. Nobody is judging you here. But still, you should go easy on that stuff, you know that. I’ll cover your debt. Again. And I really hope I won’t have to do it anytime soon, Fars.”
“You have my word, Richard Stavos.”
“Right,” I muttered, doubting that this was the last time Fars would ask me for money.
He was a walking oxymoron, that Eres friend of mine. On the one side he was incredibly powerful, both physically and mentally. If it hadn’t been for Fars and his guidance in the early days of Xan, I’d probably be dead by now. On the other hand, he was an addict with all the signs of an addict, and it was devastating to watch this incredible individual struggle against his own essence.
A Mortian guard knocked on our open cell door and broke the moment of tension that had arisen between me and my only real friend in this hellish place.
“Stavos, report for patronage.”
“Patronage? Is it another human?”
I was immediately excited and saddened at the same time. No human survived Xan for longer than a few days, maybe weeks if they were lucky. I hadn’t seen a human in years, but I couldn’t wish this fate upon anyone.
“Go, now,” the guard hissed.
I looked at Fars and he just shrugged. New prisoners were met by old prisoners of the same race so they would settle more easily. That was called “patronage.” In most cases, the veteran prisoner would escort the new one down the hallway to gen-pop and then either abandon the poor guy, steal his stuff, or just murder him then and there for a boast or even a joke.
Redeemer: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 2) Page 1
