Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Did you hear that?” Ezo asked, suddenly looking pale in TO-96’s holo-projection.

  “Yes, I heard it,” Awen admitted. The voice was so creepy that she hated to acknowledge she’d heard it.

  “Who… who is that?” he asked.

  “Let me check.” Awen closed her eyes and reached out in the Unity. She moved past the rubble and examined the vertical shaft. The walls pulsed an angry red color as if the living energy within them was upset with the destruction. It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the space, ripping the ramp from the walls and bringing down half the structure along with it. Then she reminded herself that a bomb had gone off in it. Three of them, to be exact. She looked around in the Unity and noticed a life-form descending a thin string like a spider crawling down a single strand of webbing. Another chill climbed up her neck.

  “I see someone.” Awen narrowed her focus and looked more carefully, pulse racing. “Wait, no. I see two people.”

  “Who are they?” Ezo asked.

  Awen moved in, trying to clarify the face of the person who spoke to them. “It’s—I think it’s Kane. The bald man from the plaza.” Awen breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps this meant that So-Elku had been killed. Then Awen scolded herself for feeling relieved at the prospect of another person’s death. But he did just try to kill me. She’d be justified in hastening his death, wouldn’t she?

  “Eeezo… come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  It was Kane, and he was grinning a horrible, murderous, treacherous grin. Who is he? She grew more terrified with each passing moment. He dangled from two rappelling lines anchored high above them. Then Awen noticed a second form hanging beside him in another harness.

  “There’s someone else, but I can’t make them out,” Awen said.

  Ezo coughed.

  “Is that you, Eeezo?” Kane asked.

  “What do you want?” Ezo yelled through the stone.

  “What do I want?” Kane replied. “Why, nothing at all. I already have everything I want. Well, most everything I want. Do you? Yes, I do, and stop talking. We’re not alone yet. Yes, we are. You ordered the men back to the ship. That’s right, I did.”

  Ezo looked at TO-96 and then to Awen. “Who’s he talking to?” Ezo asked quietly. “Is there someone else out there?”

  “Yes,” Awen replied. “But the person looks to be unconscious, dangling beside him. They’ve rappelled down together.”

  “Is he crazy?” Ezo asked her.

  “Maybe,” she said, lifting her hands. “How should I know?” But then Awen noticed something about the man’s face. His image in the Unity seemed turbulent, like two faces sliding in and out of one another. It startled her so much that she gasped. Fear like she’d never felt before clamped down on her chest. One face looked human, but the other looked… What?

  Awen stumbled into Ezo.

  “You okay?” Ezo asked.

  She managed to stay in the Unity and back away from Kane, her spine tingling. “Something’s very wrong with that man.”

  “Ezo’s picking that up too.” Ezo looked to the blocked entrance and raised his voice again. “We would love to negotiate with you, Captain Crazy, but unfortunately we’re late for a dinner reservation at this great new meta-restaurant we found.”

  “Negotiate?” Kane laughed. “I don’t want to negotiate. I just want you to have what rightfully belongs to you.”

  “Rightfully belongs—sorry, what? What do you mean, Kane?” Ezo looked to TO-96. “That’s his name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I believe so, sir,” replied the bot replied.

  “You don’t have anything that belongs to Ezo,” the smuggler continued.

  “Uh, actually,” Awen said, “he kind of does.”

  Kane had awakened the prisoner next to him with a stab of a contact syringe.

  “Say hello to your husband,” Kane said to the woman coming awake beside him.

  “Ezo?” Sootriman said in her unmistakable voice.

  “Love Sauce?” Ezo yelled, his voice tense.

  “Love Sauce?” Awen asked.

  “It is a truly irritating pet name, to be sure,” TO-96 agreed.

  But Ezo wasn’t paying attention. He’d raced forward and was moving rocks by hand. “What have you done to her, Kane?”

  “Oh, nothing. Not yet, anyway. But you will. Yes, of course, I will. Now? No, but soon.”

  “Who is he talking to?” Ezo asked, looking over his shoulder at Awen.

  “No one else is out there but her,” Awen insisted, but she knew what she’d seen.

  “He’s crazy,” Sootriman cried. “Ezo, he’s completely mad!”

  “I’m not completely mad,” replied Kane. “Well, half of you is sane, at least. That’s true, but the other half? Not so much.”

  “He’s attached a bomb to my line, Ezo!” Sootriman yelled.

  “What?” Ezo asked in shock. “What do you mean?”

  Awen steered clear of Kane and whatever haunted him then moved up the second rappelling rope. She saw a device with a blinking light much like the ones TO-96 had used to blow up the ramp, only this one was larger—much larger.

  “You might recognize this device, Awen.” Kane laughed. “Might she? You think so?”

  Awen noticed the second face conversing with the human face in a disjointed spasm. It was truly terrifying. “I don’t recognize it, Kane. Now, let the woman go.”

  “You don’t?” Kane shrieked. “How utterly ironic! You’re looking at it right now, aren’t you?”

  “He’s going to kill me, Ezo!” Sootriman yelled.

  “Baby, hang on! We’ll get you out of there. We’ll figure something out.” Ezo turned to TO-96. “Can you blow this?” he asked, pointing to the rubble that blocked the entrance.

  “Not without placing your wife in significant peril,” the bot replied.

  “It’s the very same kind I used in Oosafar,” Kane continued. “In the mwadim’s palace. Yes, just like the palace.”

  “Wait—what?” Awen asked.

  Kane hesitated. “Do you mean to tell me…? She never saw it! You never saw it, Awen? What a pity. Genius is always wasted, as is irony.”

  “You are the one who sabotaged the meeting?” Awen roared, her anger threatening to pull her from the Unity.

  Kane laughed, throwing his head back and spinning around at the end of his rope like a drunken spider. Awen felt tugged toward her mortal body, but she wanted to see Kane’s face up close, to memorize it, to emblazon it on her mind’s eye for all time.

  I see you, she thought.

  Kane’s face bubbled and morphed as the other face tried to emerge again.

  And I will never forget you.

  “I see you too,” Kane said. But it wasn’t Kane; it was someone else—something else. The second face started to emerge, eyes black as pitch, teeth pointed. Its features bunched up in a snarl. Then faster than Awen could react, the apparition leapt at her.

  Awen screamed and fell out of the Unity, panting. She grabbed her chest with both hands. A burning sensation moved up her neck and flooded her face. Dread and… something worse. Emotions boiled in her chest that she’d never felt before. Her mind felt co-opted by thoughts she’d never imagined, sudden visions of slaying Kane in ways that made her want to vomit.

  Focus, Awen! She shook her head and looked at Ezo. “Kane’s got a bomb on her line ten, maybe fifteen meters up. I think it’s on a countdown, maybe a remote switch. I can’t be sure.”

  “Sir,” TO-96 said, “if the blast itself does not kill her, the fall will.”

  “I got it, Ninety-Six.” Ezo placed a dusty hand on the bot’s arm.

  “Wait,” Awen added. Something about Kane’s words bothered her. “I think there are more.”

  “What do you mean, more?” Ezo asked.

  “Kane just said that this is ‘just like the palace.’ There were three explosions in the mwadim’s palace, not one. So if I’m right, yes, the first blast will kill her. But the second and third bla
sts will kill us. We have to get out of this rotunda if we want to survive—as in, right now.”

  Ezo swallowed and looked at her. “Awen, can you do something?”

  Awen returned his gaze, unsure what he meant, at least at first. “Do something? No, I can only…” But then she understood what he meant. He means, “Can you kill him?”

  “Awen,” Ezo pleaded. “Do something.” He reached for her hands.

  But she pulled away. Can I kill Kane right now? In cold blood? But it isn’t cold blood. He’s threatening a woman’s life. Plus, he’s already killed scores of others on Oorajee and who knows where else. Was this her true self suddenly arguing in favor of murder? Awen resisted another lunge from Ezo’s hands. Then she grabbed her head. Can I do it? Can I stop the man’s body cold?

  You can, yes.

  Where was Magnus when she needed him? This was his domain—doing evil things to evil people. She wasn’t trained to kill other people, to end someone’s life. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t—that she wouldn’t. The visions of slaying Kane seeped into her mind’s eye again.

  “Yes, Ezo,” she said, trembling. “I can.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered, gripping her hands.

  “You must let go of me,” she said.

  Ezo jerked away. “Sorry, yes. Of course. Whatever you need.”

  Awen closed her eyes. In an instant, she was in the central shaft, searching for Kane, but he was gone. She looked up in the Unity and saw the fleeting ripples of his presence as he left the chamber. Then she spotted two more explosive devices farther up Sootriman’s rope, attached at intervals.

  “They hoisted him out,” she said. “I can’t, I—”

  “Can’t what?” Ezo asked.

  “I can’t kill him,” Awen said in defeat. “He’s too far away.” She expected Ezo to yell at her, to hit her body and rip her out of the Unity. But no blows came—no scolding, no dark words.

  Instead, Ezo asked, “Kill him? I just want you to save her!”

  Ezo had never asked her to kill Kane. That was all you, Awen. Ezo only wants his wife back safe and sound. She shuddered as the emotions washed over her, wave after wave. She’d almost put another life in danger, all because of an obsession with… With what?

  “Can you save her?” Ezo shouted, enunciating each word mere centimeters from Awen’s face. The sound rippled out through the Unity like a clarion call on a winter’s morning.

  “Yes,” Awen replied with tears streaming down her face.

  What had possessed her with this growing obsession to kill, to murder—first Ezo, and then Kane? Kane. Images of his other face flashed in her mind’s eye. That thing had pulled on her soul. Perhaps it had tried to corrupt hers, too. She shuddered. How long had it been afflicting her, preying upon her more base instincts? Had it begun in the mwadim’s palace?

  Awen looked up at the bombs and then down at Sootriman’s helpless body. “I can save her, and I will. I will save us all.”

  Finding Sootriman’s body, she focused her attention on the air around the woman then the gravity pulling her downward. Awen had never attempted anything like this before, but without it, Sootriman was as good as dead. They all were.

  Awen forced the air molecules to condense, bonding together in a bubble that surrounded the woman. At the same time, Awen tried to ease gravity’s pull. Sootriman let out a small scream as she felt herself become weightless; she was levitating inside of a translucent sphere twenty meters above the ground.

  “Is anything happening?” Ezo asked.

  “Not now,” Awen said between clenched teeth. She knew that any sudden move might shift her focus and inadvertently reverse Sootriman’s molecular structure. Confident that she could hold the woman, Awen forced the air molecules to condense further, an act that severed the rope.

  “Uh, I’m free of the rope,” Sootriman said.

  “Hold on, what’d you say?” Ezo yelled. He looked at TO-96. “What’d she say?”

  “I believe she said she is free of the rope, sir.”

  Awen began lowering Sootriman as carefully as she might lower a child in a basket from a burning building: swiftly, but not hastily. Inside the Unity, ripples of color emanated from Sootriman’s bubble and reverberated up the shaft. Awen glanced at the bombs and wondered how much time she had left.

  “I’m descending,” Sootriman yelled. “I don’t know how, but I’m descending.”

  “Just hang on,” Ezo replied. “We’ll get you out of there.” He looked at Awen. “We’re gonna get her out of there, right?”

  “Ezo! Not now!” Awen was starting to lose her grip on Sootriman. The pressure was getting to her. She guessed she had another ten meters to go, but gravity was fighting hard to reclaim its hold. Awen exerted more energy, giving of her own soul to keep Sootriman aloft. But the effort required was more than she could bear, and the woman started to pick up speed. Sootriman yelped.

  “Sootriman?” Ezo asked, running toward the rubble at the entrance.

  Awen let out a gasp and fell to her hands and knees. She’d been forced from the Unity like a wet bar of soap squeezed from a clenched fist.

  “Are you okay, Awen?” TO-96 asked.

  “I’m fine, Ninety-Six,” she replied, panting. “Thank you.”

  “Sootriman? Love Sauce?”

  “I’m fine, Ezo,” she replied through the rubble. “I’m down.”

  Ezo clapped his hands and gave a shout. “Ha! You did it!” He took Awen by the shoulders and hugged her.

  “Not yet,” she countered. “Now we have to get her out. Then we make a run for it. Tell Sootriman to stand on the far side of the space and to get behind some cover.”

  Ezo turned back to the entrance and shouted through the wall of stones. “Make sure you’re at the back of the room, baby. Find something to hide behind. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I can do that,” Sootriman replied. “There’s a lot of debris, but I can get there.”

  “Good. Just be careful.”

  “Tell her to do it quickly,” Awen added.

  “And move quickly!”

  Awen began crawling then, headed away from the entrance. “We need to move away.”

  Ezo bent down to help her stand.

  “Thanks,” she said. “We don’t have a moment to spare.”

  TO-96 moved to Awen’s other side and put an arm under her. They crossed the rotunda’s floor and headed to the far side.

  “Lay me down right there behind that pillar,” she instructed. They did so, easing her head to the dusty marble floor. “Okay, leave me. And get yourselves to cover.”

  Ezo hesitated, looking like he was about to protest.

  “Now!” she ordered.

  The bot and Ezo dashed to the next pillar and took cover. Awen closed her eyes and was back in the Unity, moving into the shaft again. She saw Sootriman climbing over the ramp remains and heading to the far side. Then Awen focused on the pile of rubble that blocked the entrance to the rotunda. There was more debris than she’d realized, a fact that reinforced her assumption that she would not have the strength and endurance to move the rubble as a mass or the time to move the components individually. There was only one way—one impossible way—but she had to try.

  From deep inside her spirit, Awen summoned the remains of her energy and willed it forward into the blocks. It flowed from her ethereal body and moved into the stonework like a purple fluid as rich as the Ithelianan sky. It meandered between crevices, filling cracks and soaking into rough edges. Awen sensed the grain of the stones, noting temperature, composition, and consistency. It was as if she existed, in that moment, within the form of every block, stone, and pebble.

  Awen sorted through the rubble and found the largest blocks, the ones that seemed most likely to prevent someone from passing through. She focused on these, her purple life force penetrating deep into the stone. Then she checked on Sootriman one more time to make sure she was hidden. Awen had never attempted anything like this before, and she didn’t wa
nt to harm the woman if she could help it. She didn’t want to harm any of them.

  Awen took a long, deep breath and pushed with all of her might. This was not like leaning against a broken-down skiff, trying to get it to move, or even slamming up against a locked door, hoping it would budge. No, this was more like finding herself crouched in the center of a very tight space and attempting to stand—and attempting to expand her entire self-presence into immovable surroundings.

  In this tight space, Awen felt as though she was buried in the center of a planet. She fought claustrophobia. She fought fear. She fought the sudden urge to retreat from the endeavor and cocoon herself away from everything—from this place and from Ezo and from TO-96. From Kane and So-Elku. From the Luma and the Republic. From Magnus. From her parents.

  Here in the Unity of all things, Awen could go anywhere. She could leave her mortal body and traverse the universe—the multiverse, now that she knew it existed. She could be anywhere she wanted, free of the pain, the fatigue, the frustration. Awen wanted to hide and never be found.

  She wanted to. So badly, she wanted to. But she chose against it. She chose to stay and finish what she’d started.

  Awen felt as if she was resisting the gravity of a planet that bore down on her soul and threatened to pulverize her. But she wouldn’t allow it. Resisting it would cost her everything, maybe even kill her. But she would not be dust that day. She would be the incinerator. She would turn everything else to dust.

  Awen’s body—both ethereal and mortal—shook. A violent sound filled her ears like the roar of a waterfall. She smelled earth and dust and smoke. The purple fluid ebbed and flowed around her, pulsing with light as she expanded within the epicenter of each block and large stone. In their molecular structure, Awen existed as a force, a presence of such power that not even atoms could deny her access to their bonds. There was a sudden silence.

  And then Awen exploded. Power let loose from her soul like a clap of lightning. Every lick of purple fluid that was interwoven between molecules and atoms suddenly tore through the material world like incendiary fuel. The violent explosion began at a subatomic level, ripping at bonds, and ended in the rotunda as the blocks blew apart—not as smaller debris but as fine dust.