Children of Enochia

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “Because Zar’Faenor placed him here to act as a sentry during their first trip to Enochia. It was actually closer to fifteen hundred years ago, not long after we first scouted Earth.”

  Not that I had the capacity to process it, but I could only imagine my jaw was hanging as slack as my mind felt, trying to unpack everything Parker had just insinuated—and as casually as if he’d been paying compliments to the weather, no less.

  Fifteen-hundred years? Zar’Faenor had come to this planet fifteen-hundred gropping years ago? And we… Parker had said we.

  “You’re…”

  “Not some fleeting human, as I said.”

  “How old are you?”

  The question conjured a confusing flutter of images I couldn’t process and odd calculations I couldn’t understand.

  “I have lived for approximately two-thousand and eight-hundred of your years.”

  I tried to wrap my head around that, and failed. Miserably.

  I’d already known from the brief glimpse I’d had in Al’Kundesha’s mind that the raknoth lived a long time—that the one who’d paraded as Adrian Kublich had experienced other such lives before. But nearly three-thousand years?

  It was inconceivable, and yet I could see in Parker’s mind that it was the truth. But what had Zar’Faenor been doing on Enochia all that time ago?

  I directed the question at Parker’s mind, sinking back into our shared headspace, and we flashed to a memory in a lush clearing, well-forested on its perimeters. I spotted an odd collection of primitive huts off in the distance—made mostly from mud and branch and clay, I could see through Parker’s sharp eyes. Only they weren’t Parker’s eyes, the memory told me. Al’Braka. That was his true name. And he’d occupied a different host in this memory. His first human host ever.

  We were on Earth.

  No sooner had I realized that, then I recognized the raknoth prowling down the ramp from a long, bulbous ship like the one Parker had flown to Haven seven days earlier.

  Zar’Faenor.

  I recognized him readily through the memory, though he wore a fair-haired body I’d never seen. Which made sense, seeing as this memory was from well over a thousand years before the host in which I’d met Zar’Faenor—Carlisle’s old master, Cassius—had even been born.

  In the memory, Parker—or Al’Braka, or whatever the scud he could be called—waited patiently as his clan leader reached the thick grass and stalked over. I could feel that Al’Braka was teeming with curiosity, and yet tempered in his questions by a deep-set fear. A fear of Zar’Faenor? Yes. Of Zar’Faenor. But also of the ones they maneuvered to deceive.

  “It is done, master?” Al’Braka managed to force out as his clan leader drew up beside him.

  Zar’Faenor didn’t answer immediately. He gazed over the grassy clearing, over the rudimentary huts beyond, and finally skyward, toward something I couldn’t see but could sense in the memory should be there, high above, beyond atmosphere. A world ship. Whatever the scud that was.

  “The transplant was successful,” Zar’Faenor said, bringing his attention back down to Al’Braka. “I have left Nan’Valen and Nan’Sarentus to oversee the humans’ adaptation to their new world.”

  “And the world ship?”

  “Will be returning to its designated task presently, none the wiser.”

  The first bit of hopeful relief blossomed, but still Al’Braka was afraid.

  “It was a cunning idea, Braka. Risky, undoubtedly. And quite possibly foolish. But cunning. The seed has been planted. And for the first time, its fruit may well bear some inkling of hope for our people.”

  It was odd, feeling the emotion that rippled through Al’Braka at his clan leader’s praise—not quite pride, maybe, but something like it, right along with a kind of inner warmth I had trouble imagining the creature that was now Alton Parker could ever be capable of feeling.

  “May I ask, Master,” Al’Braka said quietly, timidly. “What name did you leave this new world?”

  Zar’Faenor’s lip gave the faintest twitch—the closest thing to a smile Al’Braka had ever seen from him in five centuries of service.

  “Enochia.”

  It all clicked then. Too much, too fast.

  I swear to Alpha and everything else, my mind nearly exploded.

  I yanked back. The world shifted around me, growing louder and yet more muddled. Then something hit me in the back. The wall, I realized, coming dazedly back to my senses in my own body. I’d released Alton Parker’s hand and collapsed back against the wall.

  I sank to my haunches, breathing rapidly, cold sweat running down my spine.

  “Come now,” came Parker’s voice. “You didn’t even make it to the upsetting parts.” I didn’t have to look up to know he was sneering. “That, as they say, was the good news.”

  I glared at him and stood, clenching my hands to stop the shaking. “What the scud is wrong with you? What was—What did…” I took a deep breath. “What Zar’Faenor said, about transplants, and this… this new world. Are you telling me Enochia is… that we were…?”

  In the transfer port, Parker curled his forefinger in a come-hither gesture. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  As shocked and pissed as I was, I almost did go see for myself, just to show him I wouldn’t be rattled. Luckily, some part of me was still alert enough to point out how stupid that would’ve been. Parker clearly saw that I needed a few minutes to get my head straight and try to wrap my mind around… actually, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try to wrap my mind around what I’d just seen.

  So I settled for glaring at him a little longer. “How can you think any of this is amusing?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He looked calmly around his cell. “Perhaps I’m simply getting bored in here.” He cocked his head. “Or perhaps I think it’s amusing because not so long ago, I stood fifteen floors above my best and only hope for this universe and listened to a human hatchling lecture me on the morality of my decisions, deliciously unaware that I’ve been alive longer than his entire civilization, and that I’ve experienced more pain and loss, more fear and raw, terrible knowledge than his sad little brain could possibly comprehend. You have no idea what is out there in the deep void, Haldin Raish. No idea how petty your planetary squabbles are next to…”

  He tilted his head, the sneer sliding from his face to be replaced by a look of concentration.

  “Dammit,” he muttered, so quietly I barely heard.

  “What?”

  “Well, speaking of petty planetary squabbles, it sounds like we’re about to have company.”

  I reached for my cloaking pendant. Company was fine, right? I was in the Haven brig, not slinking around behind enemy lines.

  Except I had slunk over here, hadn’t I? Because as far as half the base was concerned, I was behind enemy lines.

  “They don’t sound very friendly,” Parker said.

  I couldn’t help but see what he meant as I dialed my cloak out and took in the scene with my extended senses.

  At a rough count, it felt like a full squad. Fully armed. Filing quickly into the antechamber outside. No talking. Only gestures. That didn’t seem good. Nor did the few fingers I had time to notice, shifting from trigger guards to deadly triggers.

  I glanced dumbly at my palmlight, not really sure what I was hoping to see, other than some message or announcement that would explain the situation. Then the door hissed open, and legionnaires were sweeping into the room in breach formation before I could blink.

  I didn’t have time to be surprised. Not as they caught sight of me and charged forward.

  Not as they raised their weapons, and opened fire.

  11

  Thumped

  Drills will save your life, tyro. I’d heard it over and over again. The less I had to think, after all—the more things happened automatically—the better my chances of survival in most any situation.

  Of course, when your chances for survival start off at the level of taking a hundre
d softsteel slugs to the chest, “better” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.”

  I nearly passed out before I fully registered what I’d even done. But there were my outstretched hands, lilting drunkenly in my dimming vision, and there were those hundred slugs, give or take, floating a few inches beyond—a veritable wall of softsteel that nearly blotted out my view of the stunned legionnaires.

  The stunned legionnaires who’d just tried to kill me without warning.

  And they weren’t done.

  Wobbly legs. Limited energy. Twenty hostiles, and too many tightening trigger fingers.

  I threw their first softsteel barrage back in their faces without thinking. Not hard enough to kill or maim—I don’t think I’d have had the energy for that if I’d tried. But plenty hard enough to add a splash of chaos as I charged forward, deflecting another few shots as I went, and smacked the lead rifle aside, wrapping the lucky legionnaire in a bear hug.

  She headbutted me.

  It hurt like scud, but I managed to hook in and pull her to the floor on top of me. Someone was barking orders. Something was slamming against Alton Parker’s cell door. I cast my senses out, my mind reeling with drunken channeling fatigue, and a bad mix of screaming combat adrenaline and less-than-half-formed plans.

  I focused in on the rearmost legionnaire, still out in the antechamber. Focused in on his gear vest.

  “Free me, Haldin!” Parker cried somewhere to the right, just before another sharp crack on the cell door.

  I might’ve half-considered it out of desperation if I hadn’t already been too busy freeing the pull pins of half a dozen thumper grenades, scattered throughout the gear vests of my surprise assassination squad.

  Something slammed into my side, sending a wave of fire through my ribs. I pulled back in time to see legionnaires on both sides, winding back for another round of rib kicks. The woman on top of me jerked her head back, ready to take advantage of the distraction with another headbutt.

  I pulled a barrier up. Then the room exploded in a chain of low thumps and concussive waves that smacked my barrier aside and left me drifting somewhere dark, and heavy, and actually kind of pleasantly warm. Until the limp legionnaire on top of me shifted.

  We both snapped to, her reaching frantically for something at her hip, me reaching frantically to stop her. I didn’t have time to think about it. I was pinned, and there was no way I was killing her on purpose. I’d seen Carlisle drop men—even Seekers—straight from waking to unconscious with a light touch. I knew it was possible.

  So I touched lightly at the struggling legionnaire’s mind, doing my best not to plunge straight in, and willed her to sleep as resolutely as I could. Her head sagged, her eyes blinking dazedly.

  “Wha?” she mumbled.

  I tried again, more insistently, and she collapsed on me like a hundred and seventy or so deadweight pounds of sleeping armored warrior. I let my own head collapse back to the hard floor, closing my eyes and panting for sweet, luxurious breath. I got about two inhales before I noticed the rustling and groans of the other legionnaires stirring around the room and in the antechamber.

  “I think it’s best you let me out now,” Alton Parker’s calm voice declared from somewhere overhead and behind me.

  “Yeah, right,” I grunted, rolling Lady Headbutts off and crawling to my feet. “I’m sure that would smooth over this whole…” I looked around at the kill squad, half of whom were stirring. “… whatever the scud this is.”

  As soon as I’d said it, I noticed one of the legionnaires who’d kicked me slowly raising a sidearm. I swatted it aside with telekinesis and descended on him to give him the shove to unconsciousness.

  “You know what this is, Haldin,” Parker said as I drew the legionnaire’s stun rod and began putting it to quick work on anyone still moving. “They’ve made their decision. They’re finished with you here. Now stop wasting time and release—”

  “Will you just shut up and let me think?” I growled, jabbing the stun rod into the last legionnaire’s neck.

  I waited, senses extended, and felt nothing but shallow breathing throughout the room. No movement. And definitely no useful thoughts in my racing mind.

  Allies.

  Glenbark. Johnny.

  I needed to tell someone. But even as I woke my palmlight, the brig amps clacked to life and planted the cold hard flag of death on any hope of that.

  “Hear the call, Haven,” came a voice I didn’t recognize. “The demon known as Haldin Raish is loose on base without leave. Subject was last seen in the brig, secure wing, where he attacked an armed squad and resisted peaceful restraint. He is now to be considered an active combatant. Repeat, Haldin Raish is to be treated as an active combatant on sight, by order of Central Command.”

  “Does that clear things up for you?” Parker called, standing at his cell door like the Alpha-damned vision of calm dignity.

  “They’re…” I looked around at the squad that’d clearly been sent to kill me for several seconds before having the good sense to kneel down and check one’s insignia. Haga Company. 323rd. The same damn company Auckus had sent to round me up when the hybrids had attacked Haven.

  I looked numbly at Alton Parker. “Someone’s trying to frame me.”

  “Succeeding too, I do believe. Now, if you’d be so kind as to get this door, I do think we best be vacating the premises.”

  I ignored him and looked at the door on the far side of the antechamber, trying to think. If I could just get clear, lay low until I could contact Glenbark…

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it won’t be enough,” Parker said. I rounded on him, but he already had his hands raised in peace, and demons to the wind, he actually looked for a second like a reasonable human being. “It can’t be enough, Haldin, because you do not yet possess all of the pieces. The Sanctum is far from the biggest threat facing Enochia if we should perish. Come, release me from this cage, and I will show you the rest of the puzzle once we are safely away from here.”

  Awfully convenient, I wanted to spit, that you just need to be broken out of here before you can tell me the big dark secret you’ve been holding back. But I’d already seen more in his memories than I could afford to process right now. I needed to get out of here and set things straight with the Legion. But I needed to see the rest of Parker’s secrets even more.

  If I’d needed any more convincing, the feeling of reinforcements prowling toward the antechamber door from the hallway outside did the trick.

  No time to think my way out of this. The trap was already sprung. The damage already done. So I reached out, fried the door’s access controls, and telekinetically reengaged the locks once the emergency override had had its say.

  I turned back to Parker, who looked like he wanted to point out that my manually locking us in the room didn’t really improved our situation. Thankfully—or maybe unthankfully, as it might’ve actually knocked some good sense into my head—he refrained, and instead waited patiently as I drew up to the door.

  This was madness.

  “You kill anyone,” I said quietly, “you even break a bone outside of what’s strictly necessary, and I’ll kill you, secret memories or no. Are we clear?”

  He didn’t look particularly pleased, but he nodded anyway. “Clear as your blinding sense of justice, partner.”

  The glib bastard. It was like he had a sixth sense that specifically knew when he could push me, when I was already too hooked to back away. Because that’s exactly what I was right then.

  I needed to know what he knew. No matter what.

  Guessing his cell had no emergency override, I went straight to telekinetically unlocking each of the eight sizable deadbolts. That done, I kicked the heavy door open on its hinges, not particularly caring if it hit Parker.

  He caught it in one hand, and stepped slowly out of the cell. Pissed as I was, and as much as it’d felt like he was at my mercy a moment earlier, I wasn’t ready for the tide of fear that rose in me, facing him down without a foot of
invincible raknoth cage between us.

  I stomped down on that fear, reminding myself of my promise to him.

  In the hallway outside, they were beating on the door now, muffled shouts coming through. It wouldn’t be long before someone arrived with breaching charges.

  “Did you have a plan?” Parker asked.

  “Maybe,” I said, sweeping the walls and the ceiling until I found a feasible break point and prepared to start excavating. “But I hope you’re ready to put your back into it.”

  “Marvelous.” His skin shifted a shade darker as he said the word. “In that case, I’d like to request we make one stop.”

  I swear to Alpha, the pounding on the door grew ten times louder and more urgent as I gaped at the raknoth. “A stop? This isn’t a gropping Alphasday stroll to market.”

  The door-thumping legionnaires outside could attest to that. Remembering my good sense, I dialed my cloak off, reached out, and pulled as many thumper pins as I could sense out there. Shouts to open up and hurry up promptly turned to a frantic storm of curses, followed seconds later by a satisfying sequence of low booms. Relative calm returned. Relative and momentary, I reminded myself.

  It’d only be minutes at the most until someone came through with proper breaching charges—and probably a few cloaking packs as well. My own shields, turned against me.

  “We need to get the scud out of here,” I said, reaching for the ceiling. The rest didn’t matter right now.

  “And what about your ailing hybrid friend?” Parker asked, catching me fully off guard. “One of the afflicted humans is important to you, are they not?”

  Annabelle’s sweet little face drifted through my mind, already pale and growing rough in spots from the beastly transition still happening inside her. “I… Now’s not exactly the time to…”

  But the words caught in my throat.

  Now was not the time to potentially save Johnny’s sister?

  “Now may be the only time,” Parker said. “I doubt they’ll care to accept or administer our care package once we’ve escaped.”

  That was probably a fair point. It was just ten steps beyond disconcerting that he was the one to make it—that Alton Parker, cold-blooded monster extraordinaire, was the one who was suggesting we risk our necks to help an innocent life.