“Into hiding. We need to lie low for a while. Both sides of the Eye are swarming with Cygnians after our attack on the Crucible.”
Darius remembered the Crucible and all the kids they'd been forced to leave behind. Then he recalled the final stage of their mission: after successfully boarding the Crucible they were supposed to destroy it. Icy dread trickled into Darius’s heart. “We didn’t destroy it, did we?”
Tanik scowled. “Of course not. What do you think I am? A murderer?” He shook his head irritably. “The simulations called for destroying the Crucible because I didnt anticipate that your daughter’s arrival had coincided with the arrival of other tributes. But it doesn’t matter, we’ll go back and destroy it later, when we have the chance.”
Darius nodded slowly. “Why don’t we just jump around the Eye? Go back to Union space. That’s who you’re supposed to be fighting, right? The USO.”
Tanik blinked. “We can’t go back there yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re dangerously low on fuel, and because we’re on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Orion Spur. It would take us more than three and a half years in FTL to get back there, and that’s assuming we could take the shortest route, which of course we can’t. We’d have to go around the black hole at Sagittarius A, not to mention numerous other celestial bodies between here and there.”
Darius rocked back on his bed in shock and almost floated free once more. “What? You mean we’re stranded out here?”
Tanik gave a shallow nod. “I’m afraid so, yes. Here, let me help you find your mag boots,” Tanik said, and reached out to Darius with his magically re-grown arm. That arm whirred with a mechanical noise as Tanik extended it.
Darius leaned away, eyeing Tanik’s hand as if it were a snake about to bite him.
“I’ll help myself,” he said. He yanked the IV line out of his wrist and removed the electrodes pasted to his scalp and chest.
“Suit yourself,” Tanik replied, sounding amused.
Darius pushed off from his bed, aiming for the door to his room. He drifted free, and Cassandra appeared, jogging beside him. She grabbed his hand to help guide him to the door.
Darius hit the door and grabbed onto the edge of the frame to keep from bouncing away. Something troubling occurred to him, and he twisted around to look Tanik in the eye.
“If we’re stranded, what happens when we run out of food?”
“Oh don’t worry, we’ve still got plenty of food in storage. Besides, I’ve already found a nice habitable planet for us to start our training. I’m sure we’ll find plenty to eat down there.”
“Training?” Darius echoed. He had a bad feeling that he already knew what Tanik was talking about. “What training?”
“You, Dyara, Cassandra, and the other children aren’t going to become Revenants without guidance.” Tanik smiled encouragingly and nodded. “We’re all going to become good friends over the next few years.” Darius gaped at him, and he went on, smilingly, “The Revenants are coming, remember? That’s us.”
Tanik’s smile broadened into a twisted grin, and apprehension sang in Darius’s veins. He turned to look at his daughter with wide, blinking eyes, as if to ask if she already knew about this. For her part, Cassandra was staring warily at Tanik, but there was no sign of shock or surprise on her face. She knew.
Darius looked back to Tanik. “What makes you think we’re going to become Revenants?” he demanded.
Tanik just went on smiling, and a gruff whisper came slithering through Darius’s thoughts: What makes you think you have a choice?
Broken Worlds: The Revenants
(1st Edition)
by Jasper T. Scott
JasperTscott.com
@JasperTscott
Copyright © 2018
THE AUTHOR RETAINS ALL RIGHTS
FOR THIS BOOK
Cover Art by Tom Edwards
TomEdwardsDesign.com
Content Rating: PG
Swearing: made-up euphemisms
Sex: mild and implied references
Violence: moderate
Acknowledgements
This book comes to you just two months after the last one, thanks in part to my wife’s support. A good woman is worth her weight in gold. I also owe a big thanks to my editor, Dave P. Cantrell. A good editor is also a good writer, and Dave is a master of both crafts.
Finally, I owe a big thank you to my advance readers. These people never cease to amaze me. They somehow manage to wade through rough drafts of my work and still have nice things to say at the end! My heartfelt thanks goes out to B. Allen Thobois, Bill Schmidt, Chase Hanes, Dave Topan, Davis Shellabarger, Donna Bennet, Earl Hall, Erik Smith, Gary Matthews, Gary Watts, Gregg Cordell, Harry Huyler, Ian Jedlica, Ian Seccombe, Jacqueline Gartside, Jeff Morris, Jim Owen, John Nash, John Parker, Jonathan Hagee, Karol Ross, Kenny Harvey, Lisa Garber, Mary Kastle, Mary Whitehead, Michael Madsen, Paul Burch, Raymond Burt, Rob Dobozy, Rose Getch, Shane Haylock, Tim Runyan, Tom Spille, and William Dellaway—it’s been a pleasure to have you all reading for me again!
To those who dare,
And to those who dream.
To everyone who’s stronger than they seem.
—Jasper Scott
“Believe in me / I know you’ve waited for so long / Believe in me / Sometimes the weak become the strong.”
—STAIND, Believe
Dramatis Personae
Main Characters
Darius Drake “Spaceman”
Human male.
Cassandra Drake “Cass”, “Cassy”
Human female.
Tanik Gurhain
Human male.
Dyara “Dya”
Human female.
Acolytes
Thessalus “Arok” Ubaris
Lassarian male.
Flitter
Murciago male.
Seelka
Vixxon female.
Gakram
Banshee male.
Secondary Characters
Trista Leandra
Human female.
Buddy
Togran male.
Gatticus Thedroux “Slick”, “Metal Head”
Male android.
Admiral Ventaris
Human male.
Blake Nelson
Human male.
Samara Gurhain
Human female.
Nova
Human female.
Jaxxon Ricks
Human male.
Yuri Mathos
Lassarian male.
Minor Characters
Lora Addison
Human female.
Asha Wilks
Human female.
Elder Arathos
Male Ghoul.
Primus Kathari “Ra” Sievros
Lassarian male.
Ectos
Sicarian male.
Veekara
Vixxon female.
The Augur
Human male.
Feyra
Previously in the Broken Worlds Series
In the year 2045 AD, Darius Drake and his daughter, Cassandra, went into cryo-sleep to await a cure for Cass’s cancer. They expected to sleep for fifty years, maybe a hundred, but instead awoke fourteen centuries later, and not on Earth.
They found themselves aboard a giant spaceship, the Deliverance, with hundreds of other cryo-sleepers, and in orbit around an unfamiliar planet, Hades.
The ship’s biological crew were all dead, ripped apart by vicious alien predators called Phantoms. Only Gatticus, an android, survived the slaughter but with most of his memory corrupted.
Gatticus helped Darius and the others solve the mystery of where they are and why. They learned that Hades is a hunting ground of the Cygnians, A.K.A. the Phantoms.
Cygnians hunt humans and other species for sport, and they do it with the approval of the Union, an interstellar government formed to keep peace with the Cygnians. The Union sends criminals and in
nocent children to designated hunting grounds.
Children from every species are sent to the Crucible when they come of age. They have no memory of the experience but each receives a mark on the underside of their right wrists: the seal of life, or the seal of death. Those with the seal of death are sent to designated hunting grounds, such as Hades, while the ones with the seal of life are returned to their parents. A small percentage of children never return and are presumed dead—they are known as Revenants.
Hades is populated with those sentenced to be hunted. A society has formed on the planet and does its best to defend against Cygnian hunting parties. Darius and some other cryo patients went down to the planet to find fuel for the Deliverance in the hope of escaping the system before the Cygnians showed up again.
But they were too late. The Cygnians arrived. Cassandra was captured, and presumed dead, while Darius and the others were forced to flee with the help of a man named Tanik Gurhain—an exiled war criminal with mysterious powers.
After leaving Hades, Tanik assumed leadership of the band of survivors and revealed his plan to use the Deliverance and its frozen cargo of patients to fight a war against the Cygnians and their empire—The United Star Systems of Orion (USO). He woke all of the cryo patients and cured them of their various diseases using nanites.
Darius was surprised when the entire group agreed to go along with Tanik’s plans. He learned from Dyara Eraya, Tanik’s right-hand, that she had misgivings about him, and that Tanik might be controlling the recently-awoken crew by supernatural means.
Dyara and Darius seemed to be the only ones able to resist Tanik, so they plotted to overthrow him. The coup failed, and Dyara was arrested.
Gatticus learned that Tanik had a role in the death of the Deliverance’s original crew, but before he could warn the others, Tanik disabled him and sent him into deep space on a transport ship to cover up his actions.
Tanik didn’t arrest Darius for plotting against him, because he believes Darius is the key to defeating the Cygnians.
Believing his daughter to be dead, Darius only cared about revenge and wanted no part of Tanik’s war. He changed his mind when Tanik told him the Cygnians actually took Cassandra to the Crucible to be tested and marked like all of the other children.
Clinging to hope, Darius joined forces with Tanik to find and rescue his daughter from the Crucible. They succeeded, and managed to rescue a handful of other children as well, none of which had been marked. The Crucible was heavily defended and the Deliverance was forced to flee. Tanik took them to an abandoned world to hide and revealed the true purpose of the Crucible. It was part of a eugenics program, designed to breed more Revenants for a war against an enemy called the Keth. The children returned to their parents showed signs of being able to breed new Revenants; the ones marked for death were sent to designated hunting grounds to prevent them from propagating; and the ones who never returned were conscripted and trained to become Revenants.
Tanik revealed he’s going to train Darius, Cassandra, and all of the children they rescued to become Revenants, but not to join the war against the Keth. They’re going to fight the Cygnians instead.
Darius isn’t pleased about joining a war with his twelve-year-old daughter, no matter how good the cause, but with no fuel and the way back to Union space blocked by Cygnian patrols, he has little choice but to go along with Tanik’s plans.
Part 1 - Visions
Chapter 1
Disgusted with himself, Darius watched the scene before him unfold. Tanik Gurhain was officiating the funeral of thirty-two Vulture pilots lost in the Crucible battle. He pointed out that fourteen of them had died heroically to save Darius’s life after he’d recklessly charged in to save his daughter, Cassandra. Tanik didn’t say “reckless,” but everyone knew he meant that. Darius hadn’t asked to be rescued, yet Tanik had ordered it because of some crazy idea that Darius is the key to everything—that the future somehow depended on him. Still, most of the crew blamed him for the deaths. Maybe they were right. If Dyara Eraya hadn’t piloted an RR-3 Eagle to save him, and those pilots hadn’t been forced to protect her, he’d have died a slow death drifting in the starlit void around the Crucible, and those fourteen pilots might have lived.
Darius’s gaze found the ceremonial casket floating in front of the airlock doors. The casket was actually a cryo-pod like the ones that had stored him and his daughter, Cassandra, for the past thousand years. His eyes swam out of focus and burned with the threat of tears. This should have been his funeral, and everyone here knew it.
Tanik stood beside the casket, giving his speech. His bald head gleamed in the bright lights of the Deliverance’s corridors. The long, parallel scars on his face stood out in sharp relief. “Do not mourn because they are dead. Rejoice because they are finally alive! It is from the light we come when we are born, and it is to the light we go when we die. Their bodies may be dead, but their spirits live on, undying and undiminished.”
With that, Tanik waved a hand over the airlock controls and the inner doors swished open. He pushed the floating casket inside and shut the doors.
“May their spirits find rest. We commit these souls to the divine light: Lisa Davies, Ectos Fisk, Ikatosh Karosik, David Hunter, Kyle Turner, Ashley Palin....” The list went on and on, and Darius began to attract angry looks from the surviving pilots. He’d become a convenient scapegoat for all of the dead, not just the fourteen pilots who’d died to save him.
Dyara flashed a particularly dark look at him, but he pretended to ignore it. She wasn’t just angry about the dead pilots. She felt betrayed that he’d refused to go through with their planned coup to overthrow Tanik. Not that he’d had a choice—Tanik had promised to rescue Cassandra, and he’d delivered on that promise.
It turned out that it didn’t matter, anyway. An election had been held, and the vote had come out overwhelmingly in Tanik’s favor. He’d gone from military dictator to democratically-elected dictator, which was different in theory but not in practice.
There was also good reason to doubt the legitimacy of the vote. Tanik was a Revenant, and he’d already shown Darius what that meant. It meant he could tap into the zero point energy field that permeated the entire universe in order to do seemingly impossible things. Among others, he could control the minds of the people around him. He’d done that with the crew of the Deliverance once before already, to convince them to join his war against the Union. He’d downloaded military skills directly to their brains with something called a neural mapper, but that didn’t make them soldiers. They were medical refugees who’d gone into cryo to wait for cures to their illnesses. It made no sense that all of them would decide to join Tanik in his war against the Union.
As far as Darius was concerned, Tanik was definitely messing with everyone’s heads—or almost everyone’s. He, Cassandra, and Dyara were all immune to his mysterious abilities because they supposedly had the same potential to use the zero point field—the ZPF for short, or source field, as Tanik sometimes called it. That immunity put them in a unique position to oppose Tanik, but Darius owed him. Tanik had saved both his and his daughter’s lives, and out of respect for that debt, he’d agreed to set the matter aside.
Tanik was definitely up to something, but it wasn’t Darius’s job to stop him. At least not yet. Besides, whatever his methods, Tanik seemed to be on the right side. He was fighting against the Cygnians and the USO. That had to count for something.
Darius shook his head to clear it and swallowed past a knot of guilt in his throat. His chest ached with grief. Tanik continued rattling off a list of the dead. There’d been a few dozen casualties on board the Deliverance, too. Tanik didn’t have a physical list of names to consult, but he didn’t need to; he had perfect recall thanks to his extra-sensory chip (ESC).
Ra, the black-furred Lassarian pilot, bared his teeth at Darius and his pointed ears twitched. “Skarvot,” he growled.
Darius didn’t understand the word, but Ra’s tone made it perfectly clear
.
“I’m sorry,” Darius whispered, but Ra had already looked away.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Cassandra whispered, as she laced her fingers through his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Darius glanced down at his daughter and shook his head. “I had to,” he whispered back. “It’s the least I could do.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You didn’t kill them.”
“Now that’s a load of krak,” Blake put in, and flicked a scowl in their direction. His eyes were dry, but red and puffy as if he’d been crying before he’d arrived at the funeral.
Darius frowned. Blake had his own cross of guilt to bear for a friendly-fire incident he’d caused on the Crucible, accidentally killing dozens of innocent children by firing one too many missiles at the ring-shaped station, and yet even he was piling accusations on Darius.
“Shhh!” someone said before Darius could point out Blake’s hypocrisy.
Tanik finished reciting his names and then nodded once to the crowd before turning to the airlock controls to open the outer doors. A warning chime sounded, and Darius watched through windows in the top of the inner doors as crimson lights flashed inside the airlock. The outer doors parted, and a gust of escaping air carried the ceremonial casket out into space.
Turning back to the group, Tanik said, “You have the next two hours to reflect and grieve. After that, report to Ready Room One at sixteen thirty for your next mission. Dismissed.”
The crowd dispersed quietly, and Darius caught a few more accusing looks as the pilots left. He decided to wait for them to go first, and Tanik’s eyes met his through the thinning crowd.
“Darius, Cassandra, Dyara—” Tanik’s yellow-green eyes flicked to each of them in turn. “—don’t go anywhere yet. I need to talk to you about your training.”
Darius narrowed his eyes at that. The three of them were supposedly all capable of becoming Revenants, just like Tanik, but so far none of them had displayed any unusual abilities—not even Cassandra who had already been activated during her time aboard the Crucible.
Broken Worlds- The Complete Series Page 34
